Now here’s a site that I’ve spent some time hunting for! Even though I first found it years ago, I’m only now getting around to writing about it, after we’ve been back to take some more pictures of it. It is in an area of Joshua Tree National Park I’ve visited often, but it isn’t really obvious. You kind of have to know that it is there.
My only clue to find it was that it was in a hollow rock, so I spent an insane amount of time eyeing the huge granite boulders, wondering whether they were solid or not, and walking around them looking for a way in. How often do you see someone march up to a boulder with a speculative glint in their eye before they start circling it and bending down looking for hidden entrances? Looks like they got a touch to much desert sun to the head when they start doing that, I’ll tell you!
Without any clear idea of where to look we left a lot of strange tracks in the desert. On my GPS these tracks meander all over, growing spikes as likely valleys or gullies are investigated, and sporting plentiful knots as large boulders are found and circled.
It was a rainy day in Joshua Tree National Park when we finally found this site. We were poking around in the gentle misting rain, enchanted by the musical notes of water gurgling down little gullies and pouring over tiny waterfalls. It isn’t always the best idea to be out in the desert when it rains – flash floods is a real danger – so we kept a careful eye on our surroundings.
After just the right amount of walking and with the sweet smell of the wet desert all around us, we walked up to a towering boulder and spotted a low entrance. Once inside you can stand upright and there is also a handy outcropping to sit on. Suddenly dry and cozy, we glanced around the interior. Except for the elements right by the entrance the pictographs are completely protected and are still crisp and bright.
There’s no sign of habitation near this site – no grinding slicks or mortars, no obvious midden or lithic scatter – but the boulder itself, large enough for multiple people to sit under but not tall enough to stand up in, bears signs of fire on the entry lip. There is also a curious fire-blackened hole in the rock right by the entry. I haven’t seen something like that before.
This site is still in pristine condition. It is tucked away under the boulder and thus protected from the elements. Many pictographs in this area were painted on open rock faces and have almost completely washed away. In their protected home these pictographs stand every chance of enduring for as long as willful destruction passes them by.
To that end: if you visit, remember to only look and take photos. Do not touch or trace the pictographs! This will damage them. Even a single touch is not “nothing” or “just one touch, it can’t hurt” – no, the pigment is fragile and easily worn away by a series of “one touch can’t hurt” touches. Take pictures, enjoy the rare sight of pictographs still appearing as they did the day they were first painted, and leave the site as you found it for the visitors who will follow in your footsteps.