Helper / 9 mile canyon

17 April 2019

Helper is a small railroad town in Utah. It is a very small town, and the people there tried to keep it looking as old as possible an they did a very good job of it. As it is small, there is not many places to eat, but the few cafes and restaurants have very good food options. It is called a railroad town because it has a train track running right through it and has an old-fashioned train station. In the place we stayed, there were many pictures of and the shops and cafes had the train theme as well. In Utah, most towns have a letter on a hill nearby which is the first letter of the town name, but sadly, Helper didn’t. Instead, there is a balancing rock on the hill, but you need binoculars to be able to see it from the town. It was a really good place to spend our last night in Utah.

The Nine Mile Canyon was a small canyon which had petroglyphs all through it. You might think it is “Ancient fremont Indian graffiti” but the magic of it is that all the petroglyphs mean something to them but we still don’t know what all of them mean. Some people think that they a pre written in a way which is similar to the way that we write sentences, and others think that each couple of drawings, when put together, mean individual things. There are many panels across Nine Mile Canyon. If you are going to Helper, it is very near (about a 45min drive) so don’t miss out as they are very interesting. We brought books that told us what the petroglyphs probably mean. They are the Easy Field Guides to Southwestern petroglyphs / Southwestern Rock Art Symbols. You can pick them up at any national park in Utah.