Vintage Cowboy and Boy Scouts of America Rock Etching in Antibust Creek

We recently explored up and down Antibust Creek in Palo Duro Canyon. This is the southern most creek in the confluence of the Prairie Dog Town, Cita, Antibust near the old Indian campground and Battle of Palo Duro Canyon sites.  This creek is entirely on private ranch land that we thankfully have access to. It is isolated. There is no easy path to this creek, even when accessing it from a private road near the rim of the canyon above the creek. 

We found many noteworthy features in the creek including an extensive narrows.

One of the few ways into the narrows was a nice side slot.

Within the narrows we found a natural bridge we called the Eye of Antibust.

Further downstream was a running spring with several cascading pools with great water sounds.

Due to its isolation and remoteness, we did find an unexpected feature that we almost walked by without noticing. On a large rock we found etchings that included a few initials and at least one reference to the year "1911". We've found other etchings from "1911" in the Slender Man Slot. Near the "1911" marking were the initials "GDW". Some in our renegade hiking group are avid local historians and found a "Granville Darrell Wesley" buried in the Wayside cemetery just south east of the canyon. The Wesley family did own much of the land around Antibust after the Indians, and our local renegade historians found an interesting reference in the Canyon Newspaper from 1952.

That brings up another set of initials found, "B.S.A.". Is that a reference to Boy Scouts of America? Wesley Point looks down on this site, so it very likely would have been explored by those cub scouts. 

One question I still have is why that rock. Assuming that the "B.S.A." is from the 1950's and that the "GDW" was from 1911, what was special about that rock? Was it a camp site? We found no evidence of that. We're planning on returning soon with more of our local historians and a student archaeologist to investigate further. 

How many other rocks have we just walked by without noticing other etchings, vintage or prehistoric? We're keeping our eyes open!

What do you think about this? Is it natural or is this a human-made pattern?

A little farther downstream is an area we call the Antibust HooDoo Garden.

Dozens and dozens of hoodoos of all sizes. 

From small 

To large 

Litho flakes and large pieces of petrified wood are common here. It was a nice place to rest for the return leg of our hike.

The best hikes have you return to the car around the golden hour.

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