Sight · Canyonlands National Park
An intimate rock-art stop before Horseshoe Canyon’s Great Gallery.
Overview
Map
Plan your stop
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Canyonlands Tour Guide
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Canyonlands National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
See the Canyonlands audio tourRecorded for this place
Horseshoe Canyon and the Great Gallery“You're approaching the west-rim trailhead for Horseshoe Canyon, where the Great Gallery's life-size painted figures are reached on foot.”
Plays as you drive up to Alcove Gallery in the Parkwolf Canyonlands Tour Guide.
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“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Guide
Alcove Gallery is a rock-art panel set inside an alcove on Horseshoe Canyon’s west wall. It is a separate stop before the better-known Great Gallery, and makes most sense as a pause on the canyon-bottom hike rather than a stand-alone roadside destination.
The drawings sit around eye level, and the alcove can offer welcome shade. A fainter group of marks lies roughly 70 feet to the right of the main figures, so take time to scan the wall instead of stopping at the first clear shapes. For a photo, frame the red figures close, then step back to include the alcove and broken slabs below.
Reaching Alcove Gallery means hiking into Horseshoe Canyon and climbing back out. The full walk to Great Gallery is about seven miles round trip, with a steep 780-foot descent and climb; Alcove is one of the earlier panels along that route. Expect uneven rock and stretches of sand.
There is no water at the panel, so bring your own. The West Rim trailhead has a vault toilet but no water. The long dirt approaches can change quickly after rain or shifting sand; check the current road report before driving in, and use a map rather than relying on GPS.
Wildlife
48 sightingsBighorn SheepMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
47 sightingsMule DeerMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
12 sightingsCoyoteMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
30 sightingsWestern RattlesnakeMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
18 sightingsTurkey VultureMost seen around 11 AMSighting map
18 sightingsWild TurkeyMost seen around 7 AMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Canyonlands. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
Keep exploring
ChallengingHorseshoe Canyon Trail to the Great Gallery7 mi · 5.5 hr · 1.3 mi awayLife-sized rock art awaits after a sandy canyon walk and steep climb.
ModerateDeadman’s Trail2.7 mi · 3 hr · 1.6 mi awayA steep east-rim descent to Horseshoe Canyon’s floor.
Sight · 0.6 mi awayHorseshoe Shelter GalleryA quieter pictograph stop on a long, steep canyon hike.
Sight · 0.6 mi awayHigh GalleryLook high above the wash for an early rock-art panel.Sight · 0.7 mi awayGreat GalleryLife-size figures reward the steep, seven-mile hike into a remote canyon.
Campground · 1.3 mi awayHorseshoe Canyon West Rim Camping AreaA primitive base for the long Great Gallery hike from the rim.Parkwolf’s Canyonlands ranking
The audio tour guide for the drive, plus offline maps, trails, and wildlife heatmaps for when the signal drops.
