Frying Pan Canyon-2015

Massacre Peak

 Looking toward Fluorite Ridge

 I wrote about this place a couple years ago( check the archives) which is when I realized that I didn't have a single photograph of the wonderful rock art site here.  This past Sunday(2/1/15) we came back. This was the fourth time we'd been here, but the first time in more than ten years. Nothing much has changed. Driving over the dam across Starvation Draw was  a little more sketchy, and in not too many more years I could see it not being usable at all unless repaired. We parked a little bit beyond the dam, right before a rough patch on a steep hill.. In the past we've driven the low road on the southside  which follows the arroyo more closely in the flatlands. On Sunday we walked the ridge road that runs on the north side( stay left after crossing the dam) out to the Frying Pan Canyon dam.This is probably the preferable alternative as it stays dry high above the wash, although it eventually connects to the low road probably a half mile or so before the dam.  At the point of the stream crossing, we started walking a more direct route east toward the Frying Pan dam and the adjacent rocky hill on its northside( our destination).  It was easy walking between the creosote and mesquite along the cow paths. The hike was probably two miles or so from our parked truck( near the Starvation Draw dam) to the  Frying Pan dam( one way).
 We picknicked at a flat spot of sandstone ( or volcanic rock that very closely resembles sandstone) near a large juniper, with several ancient grinding holes right beside us, and then we started up the hill to where the petroglyphs lay. One thing different about this rock art site is that although  there is the patina of desert varnish, the rock is not smooth at all,but ribbed and gritty. We wandered around, on top, and even  under and in between the maze created amongst the huge( house sized) boulders. There were shelter alcoves, more and more grinding holes, narrow passages,and in every conceivable  lie hundreds of petroglyphs. Going through a tunnel of some scrub oak, I emerged to find, the site's most well known glyph: a wonderfully convoluted image of Tlaloc. There is abundance of foot glyphs here: human, cat, bird, bear and others. There are fish renderings , lizards, many snakes, antelope and the human/ animal  that is the horned serpent.  There are also many delightfully small masks in several out of the way spots, which had the feel of being rendered by the same artist. There are many crosses  as well,which may have been after contact or observation of the Spaniards ( some say these are not crosses at all but images of the western star, the planet Venus),  although there  are no etchings of horse and rider as at other sites.
  The  unseasonably warm February weather and light were perfect, and I had wonderfully mellow feeling until, after photographing one last panel at the bottom of the hill I realized I hadn't put the SD card in the camera. In a bit of Groundhog Day comedy, I ended racing back up the hill and retracing my journey snapping photos at breakneck speed. The light wasn't the same, but it all worked out. We made it back to the car along the same road . Eyes on the ground, I noticed the myriad of colors  in both crystalline and the cryptocrystalline  samples of quartz that lay everywhere.