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Michael P. Ramirez

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Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Daily Cartoon: Wednesday, February 22, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon: Wednesday, February 22, 2023

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Wyoming Life

Terlingua is a ghost town in Texas where the world’s chili champions are made. But many of those Terlingua International Chili champions say their favorite chili stage isn’t in the Texas desert at all. 

It’s in the tiny town of Chugwater, population 175, where even the best of the best are willing to drive a thousand miles or more on a chili pilgrimage that’s been going strong for decades, raising money for local nonprofits and quietly serving as one of Wyoming’s biggest, word-of-mouth tourism wins. 

Many contestants pair their chili fest trip with subsequent Yellowstone and Devils Tower adventures.

This Father’s Day weekend marked the 40th annual Chugwater Chili Cook-off, which annually turns the tiny high plains town into a blow-out chili fest for a single day. 

Other chili competitions “just don’t have the audience participation like you do here, where everyone comes and tastes your chili,” 2015 Terlingua winner James Burns told Cowboy State Daily. “This is one of the few where that happens and it’s just amazing. 

They’ve set themselves apart from all the other chili championships.”

It was a 15-hour drive for Burns, one that he made over two days. Burns’ first Chugwater Chili Cook-off was in 2016, fresh off his 2015 Terlingua win. 

No one, he added, was ever a less-likely chili champion.

“At the time, I had this band,” he said with a chuckle. “And the lady who promoted us and did our shirts and everything said, ‘I’ve got a chili cook-off coming up with the VFW, and I want you to cook for it'.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Started Online"}]

Burns told her he had no idea how to cook chili for dinner, much less for a competition. However, she insisted, and he needed her to keep doing the band’s marketing.

“So, I went out and I bought all this stuff,” Burns said. “And it was all the wrong stuff. I bought, like, a cast-iron pan, which you don’t need.”

He quickly realized he was in way over his head when it came to chili competitions. Eventually, he asked her if a website or something could help guide him. 

“So that’s how I got started,” he said. “I went to that website and found out what to really use.”

Even then, he still faced a steep learning curve. From March to June, he cooked at all kinds of chili contests and never scored a single point. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Finally, it all just came together. "}]

“The first point I got, I went straight to first place,” he said.

That took him to Terlingua, which he also won. He has been winning chili competitions ever since. 

This year, a decade after his first Chugwater Chili experience, he was back. Not for himself, however. He had chili champion friends who had yet to experience the tiny town’s event.

“I tell everyone you’ve got to go here,” he said. “It’s just so amazing. It’s a bucket-list item. All the chili cooks have got this on their bucket list. 

“Things happen, they can’t get here all the time,” he added. “But this year, we’ve got between 20 and 25 people who came up here from Texas.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Big Chili Explosion"}]

Burns isn’t exaggerating when it comes to the scale of Chugwater’s giant-sized Chili Cook-off in Staat’s Park. 

The town might be tiny, but its cook-off explodes its population from 175 to thousands for a single day, raising money that helps support many of the town’s nonprofits all year. The event has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to support its fire department, historical group, economic development and school organizations such as FFA and FBLA.

Cars will line the streets leading into Chugwater and fill up all the side streets. Business parking lots quickly swell with cars, too, as well as dusty fields where no one would normally park.

The C.H. Brown family donates time and teams for free wagon rides to and from the cook-off, lending a little charm to what would otherwise be a lengthy trek on foot from these repurposed fields to the park where contestants from all over the world gather to vie for one of three top spots in the red chili competition. That is not just for bragging rights. It’s also an automatic invitation to Terlingua.

“The public here is just phenomenal,” 2019 Terlingua winner Kathryn Williams of Texas told Cowboy State Daily. “If you look at the population sign of Chugwater, it says 175, but in the first 33 minutes, we had given away 200 tasting cups of chili, so there’s obviously more than just the population of Chugwater here. The support is just unbelievable.”

Williams paired her first trip to Chugwater with a tour of Yellowstone once the competition is over, after which she’ll be in Colorado for a competition as well. She planned everything a year in advance. 

“If you’re from the Gulf Coast of Texas and you’re not used to the cold, and you’ve never seen a mountain, you’ve never seen snow — this was just an opportunity for us to come see a different landscape,” she said. “It’s also a chance to meet different people and see if Texas-style chili works in Wyoming.”

She’s not alone. Many other visiting teams also told Cowboy State Daily they pair this weekend with a larger Western road trip that will include other bucket-list stops such as Yellowstone, Devil’s Tower, Deadwood, and many other places.

For veteran competitor Jerry Arnold, who lives in Nebraska but is originally from Torrington, the Chugwater Chili Cook-off is much more than just a cooking competition. For him, it is a big family group hug, built around chili pots and pans. 

Arnold's wife, daughter-in-law, son, daughter and her children have all joined the chili fold. They come together over chili contests like other families gather for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Arnold won his first chili contest in 1999. 

“They had a pokerfest,” he recalled. “I and my wife went over there — I wasn’t married yet — but I won, which really surprised me. I thought, ‘Wow!’ And so I went to Crawford (Nebraska) and won again. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? I’m gonna go to Scotts Bluff and win, I’m gonna go to the nationals and I’ll be famous'.”

Arnold has been invited to Terlingua a half-dozen times or so with his family members, who cook under the name Prairie Fire Chili. So far, they have not clinched a world title, though they have frequently placed in regional qualifiers, including the Chugwater Cook-off.

“There’s a lot of competition here,” Arnold said. “If you place in the top 10 here, you’re doing really well. My daughter-in-law, she got second in green.”

Arnold’s only complaint about Chugwater is that he never gets a chance to try the other competitors’ chili. He’s frequently next to a guy who has won Chugwater multiple times and has always “wanted to go over there and try his chili,” but he’s always too busy serving his own.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Cooking For The Crowd"}]

While some of the contestants are laser-focused on winning their shot at Terlingua, others come to win the crowd.

Count Cheyenne construction worker Casey Medina among those. He’s earned the People’s Choice honor multiple times, and he, too, sees the event as a big family tradition. 

His recipe is built around pork and Anaheim chilis, slow-cooked with onions, garlic and tomatoes. His secret weapon is just letting all the natural flavors shine through. 

“No secret seasonings,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “No added ingredients really.” 

Just a little salt to help bring it all together.

The recipe might seem modest, but the quantities of the natural ingredients are anything but. Medina estimates he cooks 35 gallons of chili in his quest to win the People’s Choice award, and he will start a week in advance, cutting the meat, roasting peppers, and getting all the prep work done. 

The final cook takes an additional three hours on site. 

It’s a big effort for one weekend, but it’s worth it for this crowd, he said, waving a hand at all the people milling about, enthusiastically trying the different chili recipes.

“This is just a good time as a family,” Medina added. “It’s just something to show off that we do have a good recipe. It’s something to do, and it’s a great event. I wish more people would come up.”

For Cheyenne caterer Amy Kennison, the Chugwater Chili Cook-off was meant to be a one-off competition in 2024, a way to get out and meet new people and promote her Wyoming catering business. 

June, typically, is abusy month for her, as it’s wedding season. But, as it happened, in 2024, her schedule was a bit light. She’d heard of the Chugwater Chili Cook-off for decades, but had just never had the opportunity before then to enter it.

“We never had any thought that we were going to actually win,” she said. “We were just hoping to maybe place, and thought it would be fun.”

In fact, they were pretty sure they weren’t going to win — given the kind of competition that was at the event, which included many of the world’s top chili champions.

As the winners were announced, name after name rolled out belonging to other teams. Kennison and her family were actually packing up to leave when they suddenly heard their name called. Their chili, made from Wyoming-grown beef, pork and deer they raise and hunt themselves, had won first place in the red chili category.

That meant an automatic invite to Terlingua, which they decided to do as a family. 

It was an “interesting” experience, Kennison said — and not one she wants to repeat.

“This cook-off is way better,” she said of Chugwater’s festival. “At Terlingua, people don’t come to your booth to sample your chili like they do here.

“And the tasting was at noon,” she added. “But they opened the beer garden at 8 a.m., so everyone couldn’t walk or talk by 10 a.m.”

The excessive drinking by some contestants and other guests created a decidedly non-family-like atmosphere, which Kennison and her family didn’t embrace. 

“It was very weird,” she said. “You just came, and everyone made a little pot of chili like this in their trailer and filled a cup and delivered it up to the judges. That was it.

“It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t kid-friendly at all, and I don’t think we’ll ever go back. It was also kind of vulgar — like Burning Man for chili.”

Terlingua might be the sport’s most prestigious title, but for Kennison and many other competitors, Chugwater offers something they value even more — a family-friendly place where their kids feel welcome and a tiny town turns into a chili mecca.

For first-time Chugwater Chili Cook-off guest Kimberly Doshier, who grew up near Sacramento, California, and now lives in Cheyenne, Chugwater felt a lot bigger than she expected for a town of 175.

She’d figured it would be something pretty scaled back. Until, that is, she drove into the car-lined streets and found herself at what felt like a “really big farmers market” with tent after tent of cooks and vendors, live music, and families lining up to taste.

“Being from California originally, I’m kind of used to a giant farmers market,” she said. “So this kind of reminds me of that a little bit.”

Her nose had been “going crazy” since she’d arrived, overwhelmed by the mix of spices, smoke, and grilled foods that were scenting the air. 

“The word ‘disappointment’ does not come to mind when it comes to this event,” she said with a big smile. “It’s been a blast. This is definitely what a community coming together really is.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Father’s Day Plan"}]

Forty years ago, it might have been difficult to imagine that a chili cook-off in a tiny Wyoming town would become a pilgrimage for Terlingua world champions, with caravans of Texans, Floridans, Nebraskans, and others planning their entire Father’s Day weekend around it. 

But that’s exactly what the Chugwater event has become. Gallons and gallons of chili flow throughout the day from huge over-sized pots into tiny sample cups that are then tasted by tongues tingling with all the chili flavor they can stand. 

For Burns and other Terlingua champions or hopefuls who have made this trek, Chugwater’s event is counted among the best of the best for its fun and its atmosphere.

And it’s given Wyoming families a chance to try the world’s best chilis in one special location on one special day each year — a Wyoming Father’s Day to remember. 

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<title>Why World Chili Champions Come To Tiny Chugwater For Its Annual Chili Fest | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Terlingua, Texas, crowns the world’s chili champions, but many say their favorite contest is in Chugwater, Wyoming. For 40 years, the Chugwater Chili Cook-off has been a Father's Day bucket-list contest for the best chili cooks on the planet.

Why World Chili Champions Come To Tiny Chugwater For Its Annual Chili Fest

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Outdoors

Public Lands

Almost a week after a semitruck carrying 

 flipped over in Yellowstone National Park and destroyed hundreds of hives, bees are still swarming around the area.

Thousands of bees are still homeless and visibly trying to survive in large groups on “bee trees” along U.S. Highway 191. 

Jim Holstein with Yellowstone Tour Guides has been passing through the area where the accident occurred. He took a photograph of one of the bee trees, where thousands of bees had completely covered a small lodgepole in a vast, buzzing swarm.

“They were still there on Monday,” Holstein told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s in the park between Big Sky and West Yellowstone. All the hives have been cleaned up, but there are quite a few bees left.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bee Trees"}]

Cheyenne beekeeper Michael Jordan is familiar with bee trees. They’re an indication that a colony of bees is actively house-hunting.

“It’s what's called a swarming mechanism,” he said. “The queen leaves and takes about half or more of the colony and moves to a new safe location.”

Jordan said this is common behavior for honeybees when a hive gets overpopulated. The existing queen will take nurse bees and guard bees to sustain herself in a temporary location while scouts search for a permanent 

“The scouts will search until they find a permanent location,” he said. “In the meantime, you'll have groups and colonies hanging in the trees as they regroup.”

A new permanent home could be a hole in a tree, a cave, or “anywhere that’s out of the water and elements,” said Jordan. 

Bee trees are meant to be staging locations so the scouts can lead the hive to their new home.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Sugar High"}]

When the scout bees find a suitable location for a permanent hive, their next priority is

“Right now, they’re looking for a sugar source,” Jordan said. “Bees need sugar to produce wax from their glands. Once they produce the wax and form it, they'll actively engineer foam in what we call a pendulum manner to make honeycombs.”

Bees instinctively know how to build hives, and their goal is to start propagating as soon as possible after a hive-destroying incident.

Once they find a suitable spot with plenty of sugar in the vicinity, maybe a rock formation or building near a flower-filled meadow, the queen will follow the scouts to the new hive. Instinctively, all the bees on the bee tree will follow her.

Jordan didn't think there would be any bee trees for tourists to see by Wednesday.

“Those clusters will be gone within 24 to 48 hours if they find a good location,” he said. “After that, there’s nothing you can do to recover them, because tracking them is very hard.

The fact that bee trees can still be seen along U.S. Highway 191 six days after the June 16 crash might indicate the bees are having trouble finding an ideal place for a new home. But it definitely means the colonies can be safely recovered.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Get Those Bees, Please"}]

Within 24 hours of the semitruck incident, people were at the scene removing the damaged honey boxes and trying to recover whatever remained of the bee colonies that had been residing in them.

Jordan said the first 48 hours are crucial in a bee recovery situation like that.

“If you can’t get new hives set up in 48 hours, the queens will migrate and leave a pheromone trail that the bees accommodating her in that hive will follow,” he said. “That’s what the bee trees are: thousands of bees accumulating around the queen.”

That means there’s a small window to safely save these bees before they become permanent Yellowstone residents.

Jordan’s strategy would be to place a mobile swarm trap. It’s basically a column of PVC pipes with buckets attached to either end. The height can be adjusted to get as close as possible to the colony clusters.

“If the bees accumulate in the buckets as a temporary hive, you can relocate them to an apiary and manage them there,” he said. “You can even hold a bucket up to the colony and shake them inside. That’s how you can naturally collect and remove a colony.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"No Bears — Yet"}]

Commercial vehicles like semitrucks are banned in Yellowstone, but U.S. Highway 191 is an exception. It hugs the western boundary of the park and is an important 55-mile thoroughfare between West Yellowstone and Big Sky, 

"They've enacted a temporary 35 mph speed limit on the section where the bees are," Holstein said. "People have to keep their windows up, and there's no stopping until crews can get the remaining bees rounded up."

When the bee trees disappear, it means the bees have found a suitable spot to rebuild their hive. Finding and removing the colony would be difficult, if not impossible, especially in the dangerous wilderness of Yellowstone.

[{"type":"text","text":"After all, who loves honey more than bears?"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“I haven’t seen any bears,” Holstein said. “Yet.”"}]

Jordan was more concerned about the people who lost their honey boxes and bee colonies. He knew how much money they had lost and must have spent trying to salvage whatever they could from the accident.

“From the way it looks. I’d think about 40-50% of what’s there is salvageable, maybe,” he said. “Each honey box can cost around $500 and generate around $2,000 in honey. 

"There could be two or three owners who lost their livelihood in that accident. That’s at least one whole company that has to rebuild.”

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<title>Millions Of Bees Swarm On Trees In Yellowstone After Hives Smashed In Semi Crash | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Almost a week after a semitruck carrying millions of bees flipped over in Yellowstone National Park and destroyed hundreds of hives, bees are still swarming on trees in the area. “It’s what's called a swarming mechanism,” said a Wyoming beekeeper.

Millions Of Bees Swarm On Trees In Yellowstone After Hives Smashed In Semi Crash

Around Wyoming

Yellowstone National Park’s “first” petroglyph remains one of its most controversial. Even calling it a petroglyph could raise the ire of some archaeologists.

While Yellowstone was a significant site for many indigenous cultures that left behind plenty of artifacts, rock art was — and remains — rare in the park. 

[{"type":"text","text":"That changed with the discovery of the Old Faithful petroglyphs in 1977."}]

To this day, archaeologists are divided over how to interpret these petroglyphs and the stories they tell. It’s a debate that’s only become more interesting in recent years.

“Not everyone agrees that it's a petroglyph,” said retired archaeologist Mavis Greer. “For me, there’s no question that it is, but who made it and when are still very controversial.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Old Faithful Petroglyphs"}]

Greer is one of the few archaeologists who has seen and studied the Old Faithful petroglyphs.

In 2011, she wrote a short paper on the site with fellow archaeologists John Greer and Elaine Skinner Hale, who was on Yellowstone’s Cultural Resource staff at the time, and even that was subject to controversy.

“I was very excited to see the site, but I don’t think (the National Park Service) was all that happy about what we wrote,” she said. “They don’t want any publications anywhere showing that this and other rock art sites have been found in Yellowstone.”

Greer didn’t discover the Old Faithful petroglyphs. A Yellowstone visitor, Nicole Cromwell, wrote a letter to park staff informing them that she’d found two petroglyphs carved into the rock near an extinct geyser in 1977.

Today, the petroglyphs are in an area that isn’t accessible to the public. Greer is one of the few who’s been able to see them.

“The petroglyphs were made when the pool was dry, and the rocks are ideal height for sitting, so this would have been a good camping area in the past,” she said.

Both petroglyphs are circular shapes with spokes and other shapes emanating from the center, resembling wheels. What the design was meant to depict has been debated for the last 49 years. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The prevailing interpretation is that these petroglyphs are wheels. "}]

Specifically, they depict the wheels of wagons or, potentially, stagecoaches carrying white Europeans into northwest Wyoming.

That was the assumption when the petroglyphs were first studied in the 1970s. 

Paul Sanders with the office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist reached the same conclusion during a 2008 survey of the site.

Many archaeologists don’t even believe it’s Aboriginal rock art. They think the “wheels” were carved by white Europeans rather than any of the tribes associated with Yellowstone.

[{"type":"text","text":"Greer doesn’t agree."}]

“There are lots of wagon wheels in rock art across the northern plains, and none of them are similar to what's at Old Faithful,” she said. “I believe they were made by Native Americans before first contact with Europeans.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Shields And Status"}]

Greer believes the petroglyphs depict the shields of indigenous warriors, a common image on rock art panels throughout North America.

Most petroglyphs are believed to have had spiritual or ceremonial significance to the tribes and individuals that created them. According to Greer, shields fall under the umbrella of ceremonial art.

“The design of the petroglyph was whatever was on the actual shield,” she said. “There had to have powerful symbols on their shields, and they would often make petroglyphs of their shields where others could see that they had that power.”

Shields would have been unique to each individual, and covered with images, designs, and colors representing their personal power and position. 

[{"type":"text","text":"That’s why shield petroglyphs are so common, but none are the same."}]

“It’s a geometric-type design that was used by a lot of different tribes,” Greer said. “They were very ornate and colorful, and depicted powerful animals, spiritual helpers, and other things that helped them not get shot.”

Greer believes shield petroglyphs need to be interpreted through the lens of intertribal warfare. Shields were important status symbols for men in indigenous tribes.

“They had a lot of conflict between tribes because that was a way that men got status in their tribe,” she said. “In order to gain any status, you had to have engaged in something that showed you were brave and an outstanding warrior.”

In that sense, a shield petroglyph was like a self-portrait. It was a one-to-one depiction of the shield its artist used in battle, down to the same designs and colors.

While most of the color has vanished in the hundreds or thousands of years since they were carved, the intricate and unique designs and symbols remain.

“The design of the petroglyph is whatever design was on the actual shield that they were using when they were out in a battle,” Greer said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Which Wheel Or No Wheel?"}]

There are legitimate petroglyphs depicting the wagons of European settlers. 

, one of Wyoming’s most renowned petroglyph sites.

The confirmed wagon petroglyph at Castle Gardens is one of the reasons Greer cited for why she doesn’t believe the Old Faithful petroglyphs depict wagon wheels.

For one thing, the circular designs at Old Faithful are very intricate and asymmetrical. The wheels on wagon petroglyphs are much simpler, emulating the spoked design of an actual wagon wheel.

Also, Greer isn’t aware of any petroglyphs of wheels without wagons. It’s something she researched for her 2011 paper.

“Wheels, by themselves, are even less common in rock art than complete wagons or vehicles,” she said. “The only possible single wheel we found is at Newspaper Rock in eastern Utah, and its identification is based only on its circular form with rays, not any historical association with a wagon or other items, (so) there is no evidence that it’s a wheel.”

For Greer, it’d be highly unlikely to find a petroglyph depicting a wagon wheel without also depicting a wagon. Meanwhile, it’s quite common to find isolated shield petroglyphs.

“When these wheels are compared with the Old Faithful figures, they both are round with spokes or rays,” she said. “The similarities end there.”

There is another type of wheel that had great spiritual and ceremonial significance to indigenous tribes: medicine wheels. 

Medicine wheels, like the Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark in the Bighorn Mountains, were usually constructed in sacred areas.

While the Old Faithful geyser basin could easily have been a sacred area deserving of a medicine wheel, Greer doesn’t think that’s a likely explanation for the petroglyphs.

“When viewed from a stylistic perspective of cultures in the northwestern Plains and Rocky Mountains, a shield design is a better explanation.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Who, When, Why"}]

So, if the Old Faithful petroglyphs weren’t depicting wagon wheels, and they weren’t made by a European, who made them? When were they made?

[{"type":"text","text":"Those questions, according to Greer, are much harder to answer.  "}]

“There are just too many tribes that were traveling through Yellowstone in the last thousand years,” she said. “Even with a lot of investigation, I don’t think anyone would be comfortable saying its Shoshone as opposed to the Crow, Blackfeet, or Kiowa. 

"The Cheyenne and Arapahoe were there, too. Any one of them could have made those petroglyphs.”

Determining the age of the petroglyphs would also be difficult, but that’s another reason why Greer believes they aren’t depicting wagon wheels. They look too old.

“The petroglyphs are in a geologic situation where if a European had made it, it would look a lot fresher than it does,” she said. “It looks like it's been there for some time.”

Greer didn’t have enough data to give an approximate age range for the Old Faithful petroglyphs, but she’s confident that they’re too old to be wagon wheels. 

She believes the petroglyphs are older than the first wagon wheels in western North America.

“My only thought is that they were created pre-contact,” she said. “That's not saying much, because the contact period for this area starts in 1800, but it’s something.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Not So Open Secrets"}]

The Old Faithful petroglyphs remain the best-known petroglyphs in Yellowstone National Park, but even they aren’t common knowledge to the typical tourist. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Anyone who wants to see them can’t."}]

“It's in an area of the park where you cannot go without a ranger,” Greer said. That makes it easier to keep the location secluded.”

While there’s plenty of accessible information on Yellowstone’s archaeology, petroglyphs, and other indigenous rock art are rarely mentioned. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Greer believes that’s simultaneously deliberate and accidental."}]

Greer is aware of other Yellowstone petroglyphs and rock art panels discovered within the last two decades, but information about them is scarce. 

That’s partly because they’re inaccessible to most tourists and scientists.

“I think most archeologists thought there was rock art in Yellowstone, but nobody had gone out there and really searched for it before,” she said. “Doing a rock art survey in the park is not a simple thing. You’d need money, horses, and a camping crew to find those places.”

Greer also believes the National Park Service has a vested interest in restricting what gets published about these sites, at least until they’re better understood. 

From what she’s heard, the newly discovered sites are more fragile than the Old Faithful petroglyphs.

“The new sites have been paintings rather than petroglyphs,” she said. “That’s just the nature of the rock that they're dealing with. 

"On limestone and even types of granite, they're more likely to have paintings than petroglyphs.”

Greer’s 2011 paper on the Old Faithful petroglyphs is still the most recent scholarly work on any rock art in Yellowstone, and it’s “still controversial,” according to Greer.

“That one’s been known for a long time, and I wouldn't say there are a lot of people who think it's a confirmed petroglyph yet,” she said.

The ultimate takeaway is that there’s much more to learn about the history of indigenous tribes in Yellowstone, and the known and yet-to-be-discovered rock art will deepen our understanding of the park’s place in human history.

“There's been a lot of work on indigenous use of Yellowstone prior to and even after the coming of Europeans,” she said. “The history of the park goes back thousands of years, and these rock art panels show us there’s still so much to discover and learn.”

Yellowstone's “first” petroglyph remains controversial. Some archaeologists don't buy it. While Yellowstone was a significant site for indigenous cultures rock art was rare. That changed with the discovery of the Old Faithful "petroglyphs" in 1977.

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