Sheep Springs Petroglyphs - El Paso Mountains Wilderness

Not long ago (yes, I'm way behind) I visited the Sheep Springs Petroglyph site, located in the El Paso Mountains Wilderness Area. A beautiful, rugged and isolated area that is chock full of history. I had never been to this site before. The details of how that happened are located after the last photo.

We had already been to a few stops this day. We are are now headed toward those mountains. Big beautiful and wide open. 

It looks pretty far, but the road is looking pretty good. You've heard that from me before, right?

 Still pretty darn good!

 Here comes the fun part. For those of you that haven't done this, it really is fun.

Somehow, I have no photos of the transition from vehicles to rock art. There are a lot of petroglyphs here and this is one of my favorites.

This one also

Human form (Anthropomorphic) petroglyph

Animal form (Zoomorphic) petroglyphs (mountain sheep)

Anthropomorphic/Zoomorphic hybrid (left side of rock)

Close up of the part man, part animal petroglyph

Here is another example of the hybrid. I know there is a better word for that, but I can't think of it just now.

Many designs are made of four parts. I've read several explanations relating to them. The four seasons, four main directions, four phases of life, etc. I also read that it is just a shield....

 A very old milling or grinding stone. Usually referred to as a "metate" or "slick."

I have no idea what kind of creature this represents, but it is very cool  Maybe a centipede? 

There is a lot more information available about these petroglyphs, but I'm not going to include much. Some of you will remember when my blog posts were mostly words with a few photos. Too much info isn't necessarily a good thing for a blog. However, I will tell you that these petroglyphs are thought to be at least a couple thousand years old. 

-----------------------------------------
This FWD expedition was organized by Death Valley Jim. In addition to being a good guy, Jim is an explorer, scout, wilderness guide, writer, photographer and master of all things desert related. I've been around the desert a lot more than most folks and I know where a lot of great "non-tourist" places are located, but I have to admit that I'm not in the same class as Jim. I'm trying though...



.

Rock Island Shelter Pictographs and Milling Stone - Joshua Tree NP

I probably wasn't the first modern person to discover this place, but other than one obscure item on the internet, I've not heard a peep in about 40 years. Also, there are always zero footprints (other than mine) when I get there. I'm not surprised, because this is one of those places that people bypass to get somewhere else. Truthfully, there aren't even that many people who come anywhere close to it.  Even the people who know where things are and won't tell you, don't know about it. So, I claim this rock formation and all it contains, for ....ME!  I think I'll call it Rock Island.

Just one pretty rock formation in a sea of thousands of pretty rock formations.  

There's a large rock shelter up there.

There are no pictographs or petroglyphs in the first shelter. However, what is there is EVERY bit as exciting. See that large flat-ish rock in the middle of the photo? It's a milling stone! many people refer to them as a "slick." Probably because (as you can see) the top of the stone is smooth and somewhat concave from grinding seeds, acorns, etc into meal or flour. To the right of the stone you can see some round depressions in the floor. I think they were the start of mortars (morteros).

 Next to the first shelter is another.

It is actually bigger than the first one. Let's see what might be inside.

The view out the other end of the shelter. 

The rock art in this area is all old, but some of it is very old. Depending on how exposed they are, pictographs are sometimes almost impossible to see with the naked eye. As you can see in this photo.

 Here is a DStretch enhanced photo of the same spot.

 This one was almost impossible to see.

 Even when enhanced, I can only tell you that it's an abstract design.

This enhanced photo clearly shows at least one stylized rattlesnake. The large red figure to the right looks like a zoomorphic (animal) and anthropomorphic (human) combo. In this case a snake combined with a human. At least that's how it looks to me. However, I could just be having a flashback. I'll shut up now! Enjoy the rest of the post.

 Another example of the same photo.

.