This is a pretty nice site of pictographs and petroglyphs but my main memory of the visit is of being miserably itchy, since we were plagued by hordes of no-see-ums! They had a great time finding spots to land and had a feast wherever they ended up. With long sleeves and a bug net the visit would have been better, but we did not expect to be swarmed and were not prepared at all!
Boy, it is a good thing this site is easy to get to because we were tired when we visited it! The previous day was a long one, with about ten miles of 100% cross-country scrambling over terrain that was almost never flat.
The site sits in a wash that is a popular spot for the local ATV riders and you can basically drive right up to it, which we did. Don’t try it in a passenger vehicle though. You’d get stuck within the first ten feet once you leave pavement. I think this is the sandiest wash I’ve ever been to.
Obviously this site will be known to the locals if it is right next to a dirt road. There are quite a few sites around that are well-known and yet not within National Parks for protection. Some of them, like the Golden Hills pictograph site, are kept pristine. Others, like the Coyote Hole Petroglyph site, suffered vandalism and willful damage in the past but are now under the local community’s protection. Yet others were or still are a hotspot for vandalism, graffiti and neglect.
Early Autumn can be pretty toasty in California’s desert regions, and last September saw us head out to a petroglyph site while wishing the weather was maybe 15 to 20 degrees cooler. On top of that, we weren’t sure if what we would find would be worth it! We’d read some site descriptions from other visitors, and while those descriptions stressed the sheer quantity of petroglyphs, they also mentioned disquieting phrases like “poorly pecked” and “indistinct”. Still, we wouldn’t know what was there until we went to look, would we?
There are plenty of theories about the Iron Door Cave. Perhaps Bill Keys, the pioneering rancher whose name looms large in Joshua Tree National Park’s recent history, built it as a prison for his schizophrenic son. Or maybe it was a cold storage room. Or perhaps it was a hidden strong room to secure gold from nearby mines ( or maybe just the dynamite ).
The door was made to be barred from the outside and is very well hidden. Of course it is easy to hide something in the jumbled boulders of the Wonderland of Rocks, but this place is especially well hidden. You can walk right by and not spot it. I know I did just that the first time I was in this area specifically looking for it!
The petroglyphs at Steam Wells are well worth a visit. You’ll have to drive in on a dirt road that turns rough and sandy, and then hike about 3/4 of a mile up a wash to see them. Don’t try driving to this site in a 2WD vehicle or a passenger vehicle! Parts of the road are very rough, across sharp bedrock, or very sandy, and you will get stuck for sure. You’ll need 4WD, or else the ability to hike in from the nearest paved road – a journey of many miles.
This site is in the desert portion of Kawaiisu territory and is mostly made up of abstract Rectilinear petroglyphs, although there are also some Representational bighorn sheep and shaman figures.
This site is no secret – the local community knows all about it. Several dirt roads lead up to it and a stone boundary keeps away the vehicles. The ground around the site is scattered with modern debris – shotgun shells, bottles, broken glass – and the petroglyphs themselves have been vandalized by tracing over them and in one case by carving crude additions into the rock. A sign warns rock climbers away from the petroglyphs but the site is nonetheless covered in climbing talc and some of the vandalism is far enough above ground that it was likely done by a climber.
That’s a depressing introduction, isn’t it? Don’t let that scare you away – this site is still really interesting and has some amazing and unique features! For example, the number of cupules and mortars ground into the rock at this site is amazing. How much time did it take to make them all, and what meaning did they have?
The petroglyphs themselves are big and impressive despite the vandalism. Most of them have been filled in with red pigment, an uncommon feature for petroglyphs. There are a few other sites in the same area where the petroglyphs have also been carefully painted in with red pigment.
The Owens Valley is dotted with volcanic outcroppings. These rocks, reasonably soft to carve and typically darkly varnished, proved to be an excellent canvases for petroglyphs. There are many beautiful petroglyph sites scattered throughout the valley.
The Volcanic Tablelands north of Bishop is one of those places you either know and love or have no idea exists.
For rock climbers and desert wanderers it is an exciting spot, offering many problems to work and remote places to explore, respectively.
For everyone else it is dreadfully dull, something to be zipped by ( going downhill ) or crept past ( going uphill ) as you navigate the steep Sherwin Grade on the nearby US 395.
These petroglyphs are found along a sandstone cliff on the eastern side of Chalfant valley. Because sandstone is a relatively soft rock, most of the designs are deeply incised, often with V-shaped grooves, in contrast to the more shallowly ‘pecked’ petroglyphs one sees in harder rock such as volcanic basalt. Since most other petroglyph sites in the area are in volcanic basalt, this site is something of an outlier.
This site stretches about a quarter of a mile along a north-south wash. The sandstone bluff it is carved on sits on the western side of the wash. The designs are mostly high off the ground, suggesting that the bottom of the wash has been eroded down since the petroglyphs were carved.
The following series of photographs follows the wash south to north, taking in the various designs on the cliff faces.
This petroglyph site can be found on a marble outcropping on the northeast shoreline of what was once Lake Owens. The type of stone alone makes this site unusual, since petroglyphs are usually found on volcanic rock or perhaps sandstone, both of which are much easier to work than a hard material such as marble.