On August 25, 2018, my friend Billy Ward and I visited the Castle Gardens site, located in central Wyoming about 45 miles east of Riverton.  The site is named for a roughly 6 mile by 1 mile region of vertical sandstone cliff faces, some shaped by erosion to resemble castles.  Castle Gardens is the type site for the Castle Gardens Shield Style of rock art, which is characterized by warriors with shields or shields alone, typically excised into the sandstone and then painted.  The consensus among archaeologists is that the rock art was made by the Athapaskan culture (related to Navaho and Apache) between 1000 – 1250 A.D.   We enjoyed experiencing this beautiful and unique style of rock art.  We did a pretty thorough search of the area, the highlight of our efforts being the shield that we found far away from the main panels, shown above.  We were also able to locate the spot where the Great Turtle Shield was cut from the cliff-face.  Hope you enjoy my photos of this special place!