See our article on the Gunlock Utah Naming Cave.

The Naming Cave is a well-known but difficult-to-find cave in SW Utah with fascinating petroglyphs. It is a fragile resource and those who know its exact location tend not to reveal it to the public.

There is another, lesser-known cave in the area that also contains interesting rock art - both petroglyphs and pictographs, as our photos show.

The Naming Cave (also sometimes called the Birthing Cave) contains a large sandstone slab that has fallen at an angle inside the cavern. The top of the slab is covered with very detailed petroglyphs. The second cave only has a few petroglyphs, which are pecked into the floor. There are also a few pictographs painted onto the cave's ceiling. Some are faint and look old. Others look like they are recent and are probably vandalism.

Both caves are located in an area of red rock on top of a mountain west of Gunlock. The access road is very rocky and sandy and we recommend only high-clearance four-wheel-drive vehicles attempt to drive it.

To get into the Naming Cave you have to scramble up a sandstone fin and then downclimb a cliff with considerable exposure. Access to the second cave is much easier and only requires scrambling up sandstone.

The area is surprisingly beautiful, almost like a park, with green trees and brush flanking red rock fins and towers, growing out of the sand on top of a mountain towering above the surrounding desert.

The map below shows the general area of the second cave.