Hexie Mountains - Desolate and Beautiful - Joshua Tree National Park

I apologize for my absence here. We've been out there, doing what we do, but I just haven't had much free time lately. I have plenty of backed up posts in draft form. Some from places, some stories and some that are just the general nonsense I post from time to time.
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Onward....
The Hexie Mountains are a desolate and beautiful place. Clearly off the sightseeing agendas of those who visit Joshua Tree National Park. This area is pure wilderness. No people, but there are animals and they only have two things to worry about...

 Finding food and avoiding becoming food!

My wife and I spent the better part of a day here and didn't see another person. The same is true for the last time I was there. Even human footprints are few and far between. 

We found some of what we were looking for, some things we weren't looking for and didn't have time to find a couple of things that I knew the location of (that sucked!).

 We could have easily spent two or three days in this area. It is beautiful.

Remember those wooden Tiki necklaces people used to wear? I thought this guy looked like one of them.

Okay, enough of the scenery for now. I really liked the eroded little arch in the middle of these boulders. These were just a fraction of the photos I took. Rock formations may all look alike to some folks, but not to me. They are all different and all beautiful.  By the way, none of the these photos necessarily relate to the next group of photos. I'm not going to make it that easy for anybody (if you catch my drift).

There are many clues that this area was lived in by local Indians for a long while. This bedrock mortar (mortero) was close to a quarter mile from....

 This broken milling stone or "slick" 

Here is a close-up of the same stone. You can see that it is worn smooth on top and slightly concave. As I look at this photo, I wish I had given a closer look to the small dark stone to the left of it. I'd bet a donut that the bottom side of that rock is also smooth and was used to grind things (as a mano) on the larger one.

This is the side opening into the high point of the day.  It leads into...

 This rock shelter! The shelter is great on it's own, but reaches amazing stature because of...

These rocks! They appear to have been arranged a very long time ago. They aren't just sitting there, like it was recently done, they have settled into the ground (or the ground is reclaiming them). I'd say maybe it was a fire ring, but I didn't see any ashes around it at all, nor did I see any smoke or carbon stains on the rocks around or above it. Maybe it was a cache for weapons, food, etc. Although caches were usually created in higher, more isolated and protected locations. I have no idea what it is and I'm fine with that. 

In another area, there were some petroglyphs (pecked, scratched, scraped into rocks) and pictographs (painted in some manner onto rocks). If you look at the center and just to right of center, you can see a grid design scraped into the stone. 

Here is a closer look at the petroglyph. It is very faded and probably easier to see in the other photo. When this design was created, it would have been scratched through the desert varnish (the dark stuff) and right into the rock. It takes many centuries and sometimes thousands of years for the "varnish" to reform to the point where it totally covers and destroys the petroglyph. this panel looks to almost be at that point.

 Very close to the petroglyph in the last photo, is this small alcove. In the alcove is a....

  human form (anthropomorphic) pictograph.

 Here is the same pictograph after enhancing with DStretch

One more small pictograph 

Even enhanced with DStretch, I have no idea what it is. 

This is an awesome big panel of petroglyphs! Unfortunately, they are also just about gone. 

Same photo as above, but tweaked a little bit. It doesn't help very much, but if you look at it closely, there are some interesting shapes. One actually does look kind of like a flying saucer. Ancient Alien theorists believe that..... Sorry, too much cable TV.

About a quarter mile away from that last photo, are two more bedrock mortars and at least one cupule. In case you don't remember, cupules are an ancient form of rock art (maybe the oldest). The cupule is to the right of the larger mortar and towards the edge. I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't have started a new mortar in that spot.

These next four photos and the first few, don't necessarily have any relation to the rock art, shelter, or mortars. They are here so you can see why we think this area is so beautiful. I think this looks like an eel. 

I included this photo, because it looks almost exactly like one from another part of the park. One that I can't seem to find right now.

That is all for now! 

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Stonewall Mine (abandoned) and Cuyamaca City (less than a ghost town) - Cuyamaca Mountains

On this day (last August), my goal was to hike to the long abandoned Stonewall gold mine and the remains of Cuyamaca City. We were camped about seven miles from the mine.

The Hike
Instead of taking the road that led directly to the mine, I wanted to approach the area from the backside and only drove my car part way. That left me with about a four-mile round trip hike.

While there, I decided to hike around beautiful Lake Cuyamaca. That added a a couple of miles to my jaunt. I have no idea how much more was added during my search, for any remains of the mining camp (Cuyamaca City). In the background are Stonewall Peak and Little Stonewall Peak.

 Sometimes there were trails and sometimes there weren't

A gorgeous mountain meadow

The Mine
The Stonewall Jackson mine was established in 1870. For post-civil war political reasons, the Jackson portion of the name was dropped.  It is said to have been the most lucrative gold mine in Southern California history and started a local gold rush.

THEN (circa 1889)

The main shaft and much of the mine equipment was housed in these buildings.

 NOW

A few random pieces of mine equipment 

The collapsed main vertical shaft

The tall main building (the hoist house) was directly over this shaft. Not a trace of it remains. There is nothing left of any of the other buildings either.  The mine ceased operations in 1890. In many places, mines are simply abandoned; that isn't exactly the case here. It is said that most of the lumber was reused in the town of Julian.

The Town
The town (or mining camp) was first called Stonewall, then Stratton and eventually Cuyamaca City. At one point Cuyamaca City had a population of about 500 people.  There was a post office, housing for mine workers and their families, a school and a boarding house/hotel.  I'd been to the mine before (by car) and knew what to expect there. This hike was to see what remained of the town. I had heard there were foundations and even a couple of old structures still there. What I found was just about nothing. All of it had been damaged in past wildfires and then totally destroyed in the massive Cedar Fire of 2003. I SURE WISH SOMEBODY HAD TOLD ME ABOUT THAT AHEAD OF TIME!
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We were in this area again for the last several days. I will do another post with some better photos and a surprise find very soon. 


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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. 

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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...



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The Drive Home - Photo Mix

These are random drive-by photos taken on our last trip. Not from the jeep this time, but from our RV (mostly on our drive home). I'm very happy that my wife loves to drive and splits the time with me. I took some of these while I was the passenger and some while I was driving. It's pretty easy to tell the difference. Anyway, no real theme today. I have a ton of posts in draft form; mines, ghost towns, rock art sites, trails, scenery, stories, etc., but I really like to do posts like this once in a while.

This is Newman. As you can see, he really hates it in our RV and just can't seem to relax. I know what you're thinking, "Gee Pat, that is one fat cat!"  He could stand to lose a couple of pounds (who among us is any different?), but even the vet says he is really healthy. Healthy, hungry and humongous! Newman carries his weight well. He is just a HUGE cat! That is a large dinette he has taken over. Four people can sit there comfortably. He is so big that when he is standing up, he can see on our dining room table (at home). He is the size of a medium dog. In fact, he acts like a dog. He wags his tail like a dog and it thwacks against things. He growls like a dog. He's a gentle giant and we love traveling with him. Okay, let's get on with the drive-by photos.

What is wrong with this scene? I assume you've noticed the semi-truck and trailer driving right at us. It's not like he's supposed to be in the other lane, this highway is two lanes in each direction! The desert is starting to bloom like crazy and that was intended subject of the photo.  I don't remember a head-on collision, but I have had a headache for a few days...

The last time we drove by this 40-foot trailer, it was sitting right side up, with advertisements on the side. It gets a bit windy in the Mojave.

 It's for sale, if anybody is interested...

Not now, not back in the day, not ever...  

With all that room, I never understood why people settle so close to the highway.

 To me, this scenery is just as beautiful as the mountains or coast. 

Why does there always seem to be a train visible in the desert? I'll tell you! The train routes were here long before any roads were. When the federal government started building highways, they took advantage of the route planning that the railroads had already done. They always take the easiest and flattest route possible.

 Sometimes they play chicken! 

Now, I'll shut my face and let you enjoy the Mojave

 No train here, but I loved the sky. The wind blowing in two different directions.

My favorite

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