These are some of the first petroglyphs you notice when walking up the wash. They are frequently photographed. The designs are all abstract. The small circles with connecting lines are an extremely common design in the Mojave and the Great Basin. Spoked wheel designs are often seen as well, though in this case the element on the left is vaguely rectangular. The “spokes” are drawn with precision though, not just randomly.

Just below and to the right of the previous panel are some more Abstract designs. The top center element looks like a rake symbol. The rake is another very common design, said to be entoptic – in other words, imagery seen by a person under the influence of a hallucinogenic substance.

Here and there are some barely visible petroglyphs, such as this small diamond shape.

Some faint designs high up on a rock face that looks very hard to get to!

One of the few remaining lower petroglyph boulders. The designs are simple Linear abstract forms.

After wandering deeper into the wash we crane our necks to admire a very nice panel of petroglyphs, way up high on the steep cliff face. From below we can see interesting designs such as the digitate anthropomorph in the center, and some atlatl symbols, to the upper right. There are also some rakes and other Rectilinear designs. We’ll look at this panel more closely later.

The left edge of the main panel is just visible in the right of the picture. Note that there’s some more faint, darkly revarnished designs in the center of the picture. That whole area is a narrow ledge on a steep cliff face. A misstep would mean trouble.

These granite boulders are poorly suited for petroglyphs, which need soft rock, preferably with a nice dark desert varnish, to really stand out. Some of the designs, such as the main panel, were made on rocks with varnish. Others, like this one, were scraped into existence on a very unforgiving surface. This makes me think that the placement of these were important and so they were made whether the rock was suited to take designs or not.

One of the blast holes drilled to insert charges and blast the canyon walls apart. The Army Corps of Engineers destroyed part of the site by blasting loose granite to line a flood underpass for a nearby highway.

This is a good representation of the steep, jumbled cliff face that hosts much of the remaining petroglyphs. There is a large Rectilinear grid in the center of this picture.

Right at the top of the cliff is another Rectilinear design. You can click the photo to see a full-size version if you have trouble making out the grid.

See how time and wind borne sand have eroded away part of the designs on this boulder? This site is thought to be hundreds if not thousands of years old, and erosion like this seems to confirm the long side of that range. The design to the right looks vaguely like a cradleboard or perhaps a medicine bag.

Let’s return to the main panel. These photos were taken in the morning, when the cliff face was bathed in sunlight. This overview shows a liberal sprinkling of elements on the surfaces surrounding the main panel, including some that trail down a steeply sloping, slick rock face. I don’t know that I would have risked life and limb to carve those!

Almost the same vantage point as before but now we can see the entire panel to the upper right of the main panel. Note the atlatl designs ( one with a solid circle, one not ) at the top of the panel. These symbols are sometimes used by archeologists to guess at the age of a petroglyph site. Atlatls are very uncommon at pictograph sites, which are generally thought to date from a more recent period than many petroglyphs. The atlatl was superseded by the bow and arrow around two thousand years ago, and the prevailing theory is that an obsolete weapon would not be depicted in a petroglyph panel, so designs showing atlatls are likely thousands of years old.

Let’s keep scanning upwards on the rock face. Above the atlatls we can see two separate rake designs. This vantage point also allows us to look at the atlatl panel more closely. There might be as many as four atlatls here. The other designs are Rectilinear or Curvilinear.

Finally, at the very top of the cliff, we see three triangles with a connecting line. Also glance back down at the rake symbol in the lower right. The rightmost tine is wavy, a design also seen elsewhere, such as at the Huge Hollow site and the Up The Creek pictograph site.

Glancing back down to the atlatl panel. The design in the lower center might be a basic anthropomorph. The Rectilinear and Curvilinear designs above it looks a little bit like a medicine bag depiction. Finally, that little design on the lower right is really interesting because it was made around a natural depression on the boulder. The diamonds radiating out from the top half is similar to the triangles we just saw at the very top of the site.

By pushing the telephoto lens to the max we can see that these three triangles have some spidery meander lines to the right of them, and there is a curious grinding slick-like surface to the left.

These unusual designs keep drawing my glance, so let’s look at them one more time before we leave. I haven’t seen anything like them at any other site I’ve visited so far.