Category Archives: Joshua Tree National Park

“Lonely Hollow” Pictographs

This site is also in a very remote part of Joshua Tree National Park. The boulder itself looks very promising – grotesquely hollowed – but the pictographs themselves are rather nondescript. The ceiling of the hollow boulder contains a few red elements as well as evenly distributed splatters of black pigment down the two sides.

These splatters of black pigment form an interesting counterpoint to what is present at the Lone Woman site – at that site the alcove next to the Lone Woman pictograph is splattered in red and there are some black pictographs present. Here, the splatters are black and the pictographs are red.

Continue reading

“Petroglyphs and Pictographs and Mortars, Oh My!” Site

Often a site consists of a handful of pictographs, or a few petroglyphs, or perhaps a granite slab hosting bedrock mortars. Sometimes, the mortars and the pictographs go together. Other times, there might be grinding slicks close to petroglyphs.

This is the first time I’ve found all three in one location!

Continue reading

“Lonely Ledge” Pictographs

I am the kind of person who looks at a topo map and thinks “Oooh, look at this lonely spot way over here, far away from anything! I wonder what it’s like over here?” Oddly named meadows and creeks, hidden little valleys and lakes draw me in.

This is why I sometimes end up on some really silly hikes … way off in the sticks. Sometimes I find nothing but solitude and natural beauty, other times I find something interesting. This entry is the result of one such hike.

Continue reading

“Kermit” Petroglyphs

As you drive the paved roads through Joshua Tree National Park you may have noticed the numerous washes they cross. To the majority of JTNP visitors these washes barely register unless they become active during flash floods and wash out or temporarily close the Park’s roads.

To people who lived here before roads were built the washes provided an easy means of travel. Though slogging through sand is not by itself easy it is more comfortable than winding through thorny plants or scrambling along boulders.

Continue reading

“Lone Woman of the Cave” Pictographs

I made my first acquaintance with “The Lone Woman of the Cave” a few years ago as I hurried out of the backcountry with the sun setting behind the hills. Though it was a pleasant enough evening there was a fall chill in the air and a day of exploring made my limbs heavy. It was a good time to be leaving the desert for the comforts of civilization.

Continue reading

“All Hands On Deck” Pictographs

Joshua Tree National Park is one of my favorite places. By now many of its nooks and crannies are comforting and familiar to me. The towering piles of stone, the clean yet erratic lines of the Joshua trees, the sparse foliage of the creosote, the arid smell of juniper and the slick limbs of manzanita … all of these hold a dear place in my heart. The desert is sharp and clean in scent and look. It draws me in. I even spare a kindly thought towards the yucca, as long as its mighty, menacing, pointy leaves don’t skewer me. I have “kabob candidate” stamped on my forehead as far as yuccas are concerned.

Continue reading

“Rocky Island” Pictographs

The area these pictographs are found in is peppered with pictograph sites – some elaborate, others just a few dabs of pigment in a secret spot.

The Serrano have lived in this area for so long that their creation myth ties them to the nearby oasis of Maara’ ( in present-day Twentynine Palms, close to the Joshua Tree National Park headquarters ) as opposed to other creation myths that are often more general, or intertwined with a migration story.

Continue reading

Alister’s Cave Pictographs & Petroglyphs

Joshua Tree National Park is well-known for its rock formations and the climbing opportunities they offer. Some of the same fantastic formations that attract modern rock climbers also held meaning for Native Americans, and this conflict is clearly seen in places where rock climbers have damaged or destroyed pictographs.

Alister’s Cave is one area where climbing interests and cultural artifacts collide. Even though it is signposted by the National Park service, warning that it is closed to climbing due to the Federally protected pictographs, there is still evidence on the internet of climbers who disregard these signs, and the formation bears the talc patches from climber visits.

Continue reading

“Scattered Surprises” Pictographs

These pictographs are a collection of fairly simple elements, found within maybe a half-mile or so of each other. There are larger, better defined habitation sites in the vicinity, some of which I have written about.

I collected these together in this entry since they share the common trait of being painted in the eroded hollows of large boulders.

Continue reading

Hot Cross Buns Preview Picture

“Hot Cross Buns” Pictographs

These pictographs can be found in a remote valley, accessible only by either scrambling up a boulder-and-vegetation-choked gully and then dropping down into the one end of the valley, or by approaching the valley from its other end and scrambling up dry waterfalls.

Read more about the site here as well, where I show some new pictographs we found on a return visit.

Continue reading