Red Dead Redemption 2 All Rock Carving Locations

Red Dead Redemption 2 has 10 Rock Carving Locations. The Carvings are part of the Geology for Beginners Stranger Mission. They are also needed for 100% Game Completion and to complete a Collectible Strand for the Collector’s Item trophy or achievement.

None of them are missable. You can still do them after the story and they can be collected in any order.

As the name suggests, they are images carved into stone. The guide below will guide you through the mission and show you all rock carving locations.

Rock Carvings Map

This map shows the locations of all rock carvings. You can click the map to enlarge it.

Rock Carvings Video Guide

Starting the Rock Carvings Mission “Geology for Beginners”

Finding the 10 Rock Carvings is actually part of a Stranger Mission called “Geology for Beginners”. It starts at a hut north-west of Strawberry. There’s a guy out on the porch, talk to him (he gets marked when you approach). The quest start location is shown below:

He will tell you about the rock carvings and you ought to mail him the coordinates of each one. We’ll collect all 10 first and then mail the info at the post office. 2 days after mailing all coordinates we’ll get an invite back to the quest giver’s cabin.

Rock Carving #1

The first carving is at the end of the road on Mount Hagen (Grizzlies West region). Like the other collectibles of this type, the carving is edged into the mountainside.

Rock Carving #2

Next up is the Whinyard Straight. The carving is facing the river.

Rock Carving #3

In the west of Cumberland, walk to the edge of the mountain and look out for a small mountain pass leading down. You can also drop down to the carving from the top but you need full health to survive that fall.

Rock Carving #4

This is probably the trickiest one to find. At Bacchus Station you must approach the mountains from the south (southern side of the river). Go to the top of the mountain and find a passage leading down between the trees. The carving is pretty high up the mountain, near the top (facing the river).

Rock Carving #5

The next of these collectibles is south of Moonstone Pond. On the plateau there’s a rock with a pyramid carving in it.

Rock Carving #6

At Roanoke, this collectable carving is facing the road. You can see it while standing on the road.

Rock Carving #7

On the east side of the Elysian Pool you can see a huge rock carving by the road.

Rock Carving #8

Near the top of a mountain (looks more like 2 stone walls above each other). This is north-west of Flatneck Station.

Rock Carving #9

Walk to the very edge of the mountain and you can see a path leading down to where a giant skeleton lies. Circle around the corner towards the abyss – the carving is facing the valley below the mountain.

Rock Carving #10

The last of the rock carving collectibles is to be found at Owanjila Lake.

Mail the 10 Coordinates at the Post Office

Go to any post office. If you followed the above order, then Strawberry is nearest. Talk to the clerk and press to mail the coordinates to Francis Sinclair.

Check Mail after 2 Days for Invite

Let time pass for 2 days. You can exit the town and set up a camp from your item wheel. Sleep twice, then wait a few minutes (real time) and sleep twice in a row again. Head back to the Post Office and check your mail. There should be an item “Invitation From Francis Sinclair” along with some quest rewards. Francis invites you back to his cabin where the quest started.

Return to Francis Sinclair

Your last task is to go back to where the quest started. After accepting the invite and waiting for a few hours, Francis will get marked on the map by a white icon. You may need to sleep at camp again to make the icon show up.

 

Head inside the house – you’ll learn Francis Sinclair has been dead for a year in your timeline. But his wife holds a baby with the same birthmark as Francis.

On the wall we can briefly see his documents. In the middle you can see people coming out from portals and jumping between the past, present and future.

So what happened? Francis Sinclair is a time traveler. The rock carvings have shown futuristic skyscrapers and cities as well as ancient monoliths. Someone from the future left them behind. So why did Francis want the carving coordinates from us in the first place? He must have known there’s a portal somewhere between the carvings, they were just markers. He somehow got in our timeline where he had been dead for over a year, and wanted to find the portal to get back to his own timeline.

After the cutscene, make sure you enter the house again and grab the missable “Old Brass Compass” from the table, which you can craft into a Talisman. If you don’t grab it now, the cabin will be closed later and you can no longer get it.

All done! This completes a “collectible strand” for the trophy “Collector’s Item” and adds 1% to your total game completion. Just finding the 10 stone carvings isn’t enough, you must finish the mission for it to count.

For more guides check out our full Red Dead Redemption 2 Wiki & Strategy Guide.