The Hospital Rock pictograph site in Sequoia National Park is openly advertised as a point of interest by the National Park Service, and thus is well worth visiting if you’re headed to the Park. The pictographs are enormous and striking.
In the first part of this entry, The Foyer, I described how we found this site, and what we saw in the first part of it.
After we had rested a bit and restored some food and water to our tired bodies I started documenting the second part of the site. My companion wandered outside to examine the little “patio” area outside the second entrance and look for any more pictographs close by.
I, on the other hand, found that the second panel was at such an angle, curving above my head and along the side of the tunnel, that I did my best work sprawled on my back on the dirt floor of the shelter, looking upward at the pictographs stretching above me.
We’ve been to some pretty amazing sites in Joshua Tree National Park, and it is hard to pick a favorite. Some are awe-inspiring because their pictographs are tucked away out of the reach of the elements and still as pristine as the day they were painted, however many years ago. Others have evocative imagery or a strong sense of place and of the people that made them. And others simply defy description: isolated, extensive, awe-inspiring.
How do I find sites? A question with many answers! Sometimes, we are simply out exploring and we stumble on a site we had no inkling of until we happened across it. Sometimes, it is a well-known site that we visit because we’ve heard of it. And sometimes, I hear a rumor and we set out to see what we can find.
This site was one of those “heard a rumor” sites. But even worse, it was one of those “multiple visits to the area and still nothing” sites! One warm spring morning, armed with newfound knowledge and determination, we set out to our target location to look at every boulder from every angle, because it had to be somewhere.
I’ve had my eye on a quiet corner of the desert for a while, and one day we had the opportunity to go wandering there. Traveling there involved the usual meandering up washes, taking detours for interesting rocks, and weaving through Joshua trees and around vegetation, all the while breathing in the arid, sharp desert air.
When we reached the general area I wanted to explore we fanned out and started poking around the rocks. I was examining a large swath of midden on the bank of a wide wash with growing excitement when my companion, who had disappeared into a tangle of boulders and brush, let out a shout. I stopped my investigation short and bounded over.
Here is a rather nice part of the Counsel Rocks Archeological site. This is the hollow area underneath the boulder we looked at already in the “Approach” entry, the one with some rather inaccessible petroglyphs!
We recently had the pleasure of visiting a small pictograph site a fair bit off the beaten track. This site is hidden in a boulder pile sitting above a small wash, and it also features a rock with some grinding slicks. I’ve heard that the slicks had a mano ( the smoothed stone used to grind material on the slick ) sitting nearby, but it was gone when I visited. Pity. It seems like these artifacts get restless when people visit these sites – please don’t help them wander away when you visit! Continue reading
During a busy winter season we managed to slip away to the backcountry one weekend day. On my wish list were three sites – two I’ve never been to and one I had been to but haven’t documented very well during prior visits.
As sometimes happens, the sequence of events for the day ended up putting us in an interesting spot … but I won’t talk too much about that here. This site was the 2nd of the three sites we were trying to visit, and the time we spent at it, as well as the time we spent hunting fruitlessly for the first site, put us at the third site at just the wrong time, where we ended up getting snowed out of the backcountry!
The Counsel Rocks rock art site is fairly well-known and very well-researched. The centerpiece of it is “Womb Rock”, thought by some to be linked to the Lone Woman of the Cave legend, and by others to be a solstice observation site, but there is a lot more to this area than just “Womb Rock”.
We visited in late spring and it was already getting to be a bit hot. But once we reached the site and started exploring the heat was forgotten. What a treasure! Continue reading
Joshua Tree National Park is a wonderful place to wander in the desert, whether you are out in the open among the Joshua Trees, or tucked in between granite outcroppings, wandering the washes.
That’s what we did one fall morning, and after poking into many nooks and crannies we happened to stumble across a tiny pictograph site.