Facing west towards the site. That is a pretty large boulder – the overhang is about five feet tall. Almost all of the pictographs are under the overhang but there are also a few dots and dashes of pigment on the rock face above it.

We approached this site from behind, so to speak. After clambering all over the hillside and finding a couple of shelters that were soot-blackened but had no pictographs, I paused in the shade of a large boulder and looked out eastward.

When I glanced back down I noticed that the bedrock below my shade boulder was studded with shallow bedrock mortars.

Not far away, a shelf under the curvature of a large boulder held even more shallow mortars. These are a little large to be considered cupules, and a bit too shallow to be true mortars.

A closer look. These are definitely man-made.

After finding the mortars we round the boulder and spot the pictograph panel. Wow! Here is a closer look at it. A DStretch version will help us see more detail.

This is a very nice panel. There is a very well-drawn burst element toward the upper center of the panel, and we can also see some hashmarks and a lot of small spots of pigment, not to mention the circular element at the bottom right that is very characteristic of rock art in this region.

Let’s get right in there with some DStretch and take a look. Just to the right of our burst element is another more rudimentary burst element with spindly lines. Was this made by another artist, or did multiple people work on this panel all at once? In this picture you can also see the tally lines to the right, and the circular element with its inner hash marks to the bottom right.

Here is that pretty burst element, probably the best preserved element at this site.

Can you tell that some of the rays have exfoliated away? The center dot is also much fainter than the rest of the element.

The spindly element next to it.

The set of hashmarks in the upper right of the panel. There is also a set of lines underneath.

With DStretch we can see that one of the lines are fainter than the others, but otherwise they all seem uniform – they were probably drawn with a brush or other tool.

Now, let’s take a closer look at this circular element. It is the most intricate element at this site: a meticulously crafted circular image with evenly spaced hash marks, encapsulating another smaller image of the same kind. DStretch will show you the details next.

There! Now we can fully appreciate this element.

Most of the remainder of the panel is similar to this: a lot of small, disjointed marks, with patches of exfoliation here and there. Note the detail of that little row of dots in the lower center of the panel, though.

Here is another element made up of carefully applied dots.

This little circle and lines can be found in the far lower left of the panel. I wanted to point out the very thin line of pigment to the left of these elements.

The lower center of the panel is dominated by this rather smudged element.

Even with DStretch I can’t really make heads or tails of it.

Our exploration at an end, we leave the site. On our way we see plenty of lithic scatter, further evidence that this was a habitation site. Obsidian does not occur naturally in this area – it was traded into this area from sources hundreds of miles north of here.

Nearby we found a low rock wall at the mouth of a narrow crevice.  It may have been a hunting blind or temporary shelter.