Ron's Log

« Eagle Mountain RR Hike | Main | Real Rain »

March 27, 2007

This past Sunday I visited Little Petroglyph Canyon as part of a trip organized by The Living Desert. This little canyon, only about 1.2 miles long, deep inside the China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center, contains the greatest concentration of petroglyphs in the western hemisphere. It's an effort to get there, most of which is due to (very appropriate) restrictions placed on the area by the Navy. But it was all SO worth it. There are THOUSANDS of petroglyphs there. And they exhibit a wide variety of styles from across a period of thousands of years (since the ice last retreated) and different ancient cultures. There are so many petroglyphs that I could simply plant my feet and photograph many different ones just by twisting around a little this way and that. Sometimes, on a first quick glance, I would think a rock had no petroglyphs, but after a few seconds to relax and allow my eyes to adjust they would begin to pop out of near-invisibility.

I have MANY photos and I have only begun to edit them. I'll let you know when I've got them all uploaded, but until then here is a panorama taken from the point where we enter the canyon itself from a side wash. Viewed full size you will be able to see a few petroglyphs.

The restrictions on visiting the canyon are multiple, changing, and not always clear. One rule that is clear is that the Navy can cancel any visit at any time with no explanation and no recourse. Some of the confusion is due to the fact that while the Navy is the real authority in the area, the Navy has the China Lake Police Department which, as best I could gather, looks and functions just like a municipal police department would, but works for the Navy to handle security and general police functions. The police officers are regular civilians, not military personnel. The China Lake Police have their rules too, all security related.

So, if you're going to visit, you'll have to hook up with a group tour organized by one of the non-profit organizations on an approved list. If you don't already know of one in your area, the Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest (the city at the gates to the China Lake base) is the place to go. Tours are only on certain weekends in the spring and fall. You have to register well in advance and provide a lot of identifying information so the Navy can run a security check on you. You have to be an American citizen, or maybe a permanent resident alien (I saw contradictory rules on that). There will be no more than five vehicles in a group (or six, depending on which rule you read), so carpooling will be maximized. No campers or buses. You will not wear short pants!

The short pants rule got popped on us just as we were about to leave our motel Sunday morning. I had to go back and change. A couple of guys had brought no long pants. The police at the base explained that last year somebody got a boo-boo on their leg while wearing shorts and a brouhaha erupted. I'm guessing somebody wrote their Congressional representative or some such nonsense. So the Navy did what it could do: terminate all visits to the canyon. Behind the scenes negotiating by responsible people led to the re-opening of the canyon this year with a long pants rule.

Upon entering the base everybody gets out of the cars and should be prepared to show proof of identity and citizenship (or legal alien residency) while the vehicle owners produce registration and proof of insurance. All doors, hoods and trunks are opened wide so that the vehicles can be searched while you stand off to the side for a lecture on security and protection of the canyon. Really, at least half the rules are simply to protect the canyon, and they've worked well. There has been very little vandalism there.

To reassure the apprehensive potential visiter, this security procedure is NOT being conducted by TSA. These are real police who are very pleasant and professional, who listen to questions and answer them. There were no strip searches on the pavement, much to my disappointment.

We then proceeded in our cars, as a group, on the 45-mile drive to the canyon. Each tour must be accompanied by volunteer, official escorts, who are civilians from the communities nearby. We had three. They knew the way and traveled in the lead vehicle. All cameras and binoculars were to remain "locked up" until we reached the parking lot at the canyon itself. But, since most SUVs don't have a traditional lockable trunk, the police told us to keep gear like that in the rear storage area, out of easy reach. We had been given cue sheets to explain some of what we saw along the drive. But if the rules are to be strictly adhered to, I am not to tell you anything about what I saw, especially the area where they were researching some sort of laser missile weaponry to be used against alien UFOs. What made it interesting was that they had a couple of old (captured in the 1950s) alien UFOs to use as test targets. But it was a Sunday, so there wasn't much activity anywhere except on the golf course.

I suppose it is okay to tell you that as we began to gain elevation we saw many VERY healthy Joshua Trees. They looked very fat and green. A few were blooming. When we eventually got up on Wild Horse Mesa we were treated to the view of several wild horses browsing on the vegetation. As much as we wanted them to run across the desert in a great herd adverstising a car or cigarette, they stood placidly and stared back at us. There are wild burros in the area, but we saw nothing of them except their scat. Raymond, our lead escort, said he could tell the difference between burro and horse scat, but wouldn't share the details with us. Dontcha hate that kind of thing? There's quite a difference between wild and domestic horse scat, but I couldn't see any difference between burro and horse...except that burros like to use one spot multiple times, creating great piles.

We had been given many dire warnings about the condition of the road to the canyon. The climb would be tremendous, the dirt would be washboard, the descents would be dangerous. None of it true. Easy, pleasant drive.

Arriving at the canyon there is a small gravel parking lot, pit toilets, and a picnic area. On the subject of toilets, you can use the one at the police building where you enter the base, and you can use this one at the parking lot. Otherwise, no free urination in the wild is allowed (and we needn't mention the similar ban on defecation, do we?). Nonetheless, we were urged to keep ourselves well hydrated, but if you have to pee, you have to request an escort to walk with you back to the pit toilet. We didn't learn that requirement until we were getting our security review upon arrival on the base. Too late to slip on diapers, I think. On the plus side, the men's toilet at the canyon is a two-fer. Good vision and steady aim will help you hit that little plastic urinal way down, down there. It must have been surplus from a submarine.

Here's a Google satellite image pointing to Little Petroglyph Canyon.

Despite all the many warnings, one thing they don't warn about enough is the actual hiking conditions in the canyon. Easy enough for me, but we had along at least one person with knee replacements (didn't do well), another with hip replacements (did great), some who had interpreted the footwear requirement (hiking boots, or good athletic shoes) to allow them to wear old, smooth soled sneakers. The floor of the canyon is mostly granite and sand. The granite is a beautiful bluish color, smoothed into curves by millenia of rushing water. As you descend the canyon, there are three waterfalls [translating from Desert to English, a "waterfall" is a place where water would fall, if there were water] that can be descended. These are rock scrambles and you will have a bitch of a time if you wear those slick soled old athletic shoes. Fortunately, whatever material they use in the soles of hiking boots is almost (ALMOST!) magnetic on granite. But if you are able, YOU MUST DESCEND THOSE WATERFALLS! Below each waterfall the quality and quantity of petroglyphs take big leaps. Unfortunately, our escort would not let us descend the third waterfall. He may have been concerned for our schedule (we had to be off the base by 5 PM), but he didn't say. He did say there wasn't much of interest below that third waterfall. But he had said a similar thing at the upper end of the canyon. We had gone up just a couple hundred yards when he told us there wasn't anything very interesting further on, but I kept going and kept finding interesting stuff. Nonetheless, we were by this time good followers of instructions, so we all cooperatively headed back up canyon, climbed the falls and got to our cars.

The rules in the canyon to protect the petroglyphs were quite strict. No tripods (monopods are okay). Walking sticks had to have rubber tips. We were not to touch the rocks in any manner at all...and once I saw the canyon itself, I realized that rule refered to the rocks along the side with desert varnish on them that might contain petroglyphs, because obviously we had to walk on the smooth rocks on the floor of the canyon. In a few spots, rocks with petroglyphs were very low and almost horizontal, very nearly on the floor of the canyon, and easy to step on if you're inattentive. On the other hand, in a few places pockets of sand and vegetation have accumulated among the boulders allowing you to walk a few steps up closer to the petroglyphs on the sides of the canyon. I would recommend a telephoto lens (as you should know by now, I'm not much of a telephoto guy) and a monopod. If not a telephoto lens, then lots of megapixels will help. At least one side of the canyon will be mostly in shadow, and due to security restrictions you will not have the leisure of waiting for the light to be right. You will have to make do with what light you have. Flash photography is allowed.

No glass containers are allowed anywhere, but I did see a few shards of beer bottles in the wash leading to the canyon. Naturally, it is all pack in, pack out, but one man in our group thought that there really should be a trash can at the picnic area. A couple of us tried to point out the problems with that idea, but he would have none of it. It's a bit of a wonder to me that a trip like this would attract people who seem to have no (or extremely little) experience in wilderness areas.

BTW, some of the petroglyphs used by Erich von Daniken in his book Chariots of the Gods are in Little Petroglyph Canyon. These are the anthropomorphic figures with heads that look like space helmets. You may recognize them among my photos, when I've got them all uploaded.

I am not going to try to discuss anything about WHY there are petroglyphs, or why so many are in this spot. Those questions (plus how and who) will be discussed forever by professionals in the field, and you are welcome to go Google your questions and see how many different theories there are. I, however, thought that the place looked like an art school. If that was, indeed, part of its function it would help to explain why petroglyphs here are similar to petroglyphs in so many other farflung areas.

Filed under California | permalink | March 27, 2007 at 12:05 PM

Comments

I liked your insight that Little Petroglyph Canyon resembled an art school.

Thanks again.

C.G. Blick

Posted by: c.g.blick at Apr 7, 2009 9:48:20 AM

Dorr Bothwell's serigraph "Indian Country II" shows a petroglyph-like figure superimposed on the image of a canyon. I'm trying to identify the figure. I've been combing through petroglyph sites, not finding anything similar.

Bothwell worked in Joshua Tree, so I've started my online research there and am working my way through the Southwest. The figure has a katsina feel (it also somewhat resembles the illustration of the hobya from "More English Fairy Tales", described in an unforgettable note as "the ghost of the comma bacillus").

May I send you a small jpg of the serigraph so you can see the figure and perhaps let me know if it resembles any of the petroglyphs in your Little Petroglyph Canyon photos or, if not, whether you might have an idea about its origin? Thank you.

Cheerful regards,
C.G. Blick

Posted by: c.g.blick at Apr 7, 2009 9:47:32 AM

The comments to this entry are closed.