Early one morning we were headed out along a well-travelled route that we’ve followed for the start of many adventures. This time, we noticed that we could clamber our way over into a small, semi-hidden little valley. When we did that, we found a cluster of boulders with a small habitation site tucked in among them.
Over the winter we found a small site with some unusual imagery out in Joshua Tree. Some of the elements are reminiscent of the pictographs at Counsel Rocks, which lies many miles to the north. This site seems like it was part of a habitation site at some point because there is a pretty big patch of midden a short distance away, but I didn’t find any grinding slicks adjacent to it.
A couple of years ago I was in the area and went to visit the “Tale Of Years” site again, since my pictures from my first visit to this site were not that great. The site was still in good condition back then, and now, more than two years later, I finally get around to posting the pictures.
For a complete overview of the site, see the original post I linked to above. Here I’m just going to touch on a handful of highlights that are better shown with this set of pictures.
Sometimes you come across a site that is almost stupefying in its sheer abundance – petroglyphs on every rock, for a quarter mile or more. These sites are thrilling to find, but they are difficult to document. I have a few like that sitting on the back burner, where every time I open the photo folder I think “I can’t really not show any of these 200 photos I picked from the 500 I took, they’re all good photos showing interesting elements … but who would want to sit through a blog post the length of a football field?”
Parts of Joshua Tree National Park can be bewildering and dangerous if you’re not used to navigating overland, or not careful when you do wander.
For example, the Wonderland of Rocks has a reputation for being bewildering, and it can be if you are new to traveling overland, or have a bad sense of direction. Of course, it is potentially dangerous if you go alone, but the danger is not so much in getting lost as it is in slipping and falling while scrambling!
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.
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
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.
After a few miles of wandering, poking around rock piles, and ducking in under various boulder overhangs or into various nooks and crannies, we happened upon a small pictograph and petroglyph site. Since we looked all over the surrounding area I’m fairly sure that there’s no other sites really close to this one, and there was no signs of a habitation site either.
This is a smallish site on the Volcanic Tablelands. We first found this site late one freezing winter morning. We had started our day driving out from June Lake and south down the 395, and it was a harrowing experience. Overnight snow left 6-8 inches of powder on the 395, which wasn’t closed yet, and it was still coming down hard as we eased down Deadman’s Summit in 4WD. While trying to tell road from snowbank I hoped that the name of the summit wasn’t about to become prophetic!