Tag Archives: Serrano Pictographs

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.

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“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.

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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.

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