One of the challenges of backcountry exploration is that you often don’t arrive at your destination during a good time of day for photography. Sometimes, the winter sun is kind of weak and everything appears washed out. Other times, the angle of the sun is such that every surface seems to shimmer with a bright glare , making it very hard to get good photos.
I found this site during a time of day that was certainly not conductive to good photography! Maybe I’ll head back at some point to try and capture better pictures since I think the area probably has more to offer!
A view of the site from down in the wash below. One petroglyph panel is clearly visible. The other is hidden in an alcove to the left of the visible panel.
The petroglyphs at this site are scratched into a somewhat varnished surface but are nowhere near as vivid as the petroglyphs made in the Great Basin, where the heavily varnished volcanic rock allows for deep, sharply contrasting designs. Like most other designs in Joshua Tree National Park, these are shallow designs created on granite. This is one of the reasons they can be tough to photograph – they are never in relief.
Similar to some other sites in the general area, these are found at the foot of a dry waterfall. Over the years the water has worn several scalloped alcoves into the granite, and the petroglyphs are found inside two of these alcoves.
Peering into the alcove from the top of the dry waterfall, which is how I first found these petroglyphs. In this shot the panel with the anthropomorph is hidden in the alcove to the right of the visible designs. Also note the many footprints in the wash below. This site is not unknown.
Moving out to the cliff’s edge allowed me to see into the second alcove from the top. Because of the time of day the second alcove was cast into shadow. This waterfall is pretty tall. The wide-angle lens kind of flattens the perspective. The petroglyphs are about five feet off the ground. The waterfall is quite a bit taller.
Here we have a view of the panel closest to the dry waterfall. The anthropomorphic figure in the center of the design is clearly visible. To the figure’s left is one of the circle-and-lines designs that are very common in this area, both in pictographs and petroglyphs, and to its right is a cluster of smaller circles above a larger circular element.
The designs themselves are pretty straightforward: one Rectilinear element in an alcove by itself, and an anthropomorphic figure plus some circular designs in the next alcove.
The setting of these petroglyphs are a bit more interesting: at the foot of a dry waterfall. Was there something special to these waterfalls or was it just a convenient place to rest in the shade by a seasonal tank of water?
We don’t know – the ethnographic record doesn’t tell us. The designs found at this site are common throughout the region: Rectilinear and rake-like designs, commonly associated with entoptic imagery that a shaman under the influence of datura might see in one alcove, an anthropomorph and some circles and lines in the other. Of the elements present, the anthropomorph may well be most uncommon element – at least when it comes to petroglyphs in this area.
We first approached this location from above, peering down the waterfall at the designs, and then circled around and dropped into the wash to view them from below.
A close-up of the Rectilinear element and the hash marks directly below it.
As shown in some of the pictures, the wash itself has some footprints in it, indicating that some foot traffic still comes this way.
If you happen by, make sure not to disturb the site. It has persisted this long. Help it persist longer.