Tag Archives: Serrano Pictographs

“Packrat Paradise” Pictographs

I’ve had my eye on a quiet corner of the desert for a while, and one day we had the opportunity to go wandering there. Traveling there involved the usual meandering up washes, taking detours for interesting rocks, and weaving through Joshua trees and around vegetation, all the while breathing in the arid, sharp desert air.

When we reached the general area I wanted to explore we fanned out and started poking around the rocks. I was examining a large swath of midden on the bank of a wide wash with growing excitement when my companion, who had disappeared into a tangle of boulders and brush, let out a shout. I stopped my investigation short and bounded over.

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“Slow Grind” Pictographs

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

“Alien Alcove” Pictographs

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.

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“Mouth of Madness” Petroglyphs and Pictographs

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.

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“Don’t Lose Your Head” Pictographs

It is not very often that you come across a headless digitate anthropomorph in the backcountry … well, come to think of it, maybe it’s not that unlikely if you do the kind of thing I do!

So … should you be in a situation where this might happen to you, make sure to have your camera on hand so you can take its picture.

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“Diamond Solstice” Pictographs Part 1: The Pictographs

This is a beautiful little site in Joshua Tree National Park that I first visited years ago. I’ve left off writing about it because I kept meaning to find out more about the rumors that this site has a “ray of light” pointing towards one of the elements on the summer solstice.

Well, I have some information about that for you too! Here, I will spend a post just looking at this site. While going back over my photos of the site, taken on multiple previous visits, I was struck by how pretty the site really is.

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“Monolith Alcove” Pictographs

We visited this site with Guy Starbuck. Be sure to check out his writeup of it!

This site is really strange: out in the middle of nowhere, not close to any other sites or habitation sites. We looked all over in the area surrounding this site, excited, sure there would be more to see, but – no! We found a whole lot of nothing. Heh heh, sometimes that’s how it goes.

This site is probably Serrano, but it is hard to say. The tribal boundaries are not that clearly defined around JTNP. The complete lack of other artifacts like arrow points or pottery sherds makes it even harder to place. Some of the elements, like the crosses, also occur at some other isolated sites in the region, and sometimes at petroglyph sites too.

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“Circle Sun” Pictographs

This is a site in Joshua Tree National Park that, as far as I know, have never been surveyed or documented. We were out in the backcountry with our friend Guy Starbuck, enjoying the back country of JTNP, when we noticed something we thought we’d better investigate. Check out his post about this site here.

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Queen Mountain Pictograph Boulder

Now here’s a site that was hard to find! I’m not even sure how many trips we made before we found it.

This site is kind of in the middle of nowhere so you have to commit a good chunk of time just to hoof it to the general area, never mind start searching. After we had a couple of unsuccessful attempts at finding it I started analyzing my very vague research more thoroughly.  As I found more clues I steadily narrowed down its location until finally I was sure I had it this time!  So we set out again to find it. This was going to be the time. It was late afternoon and we were kind of done for the day already but I had the urge to be out in the desert despite my leaden legs, so off we went.

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