Point of Rocks, Flat Lake area - BLM and State Lands

Point of Rocks in distance.

Petroglyphs

Excavation

Excavation with pack rat nest.

Point of Rocks

Excavation

Cans

Barrel cactus.

Barrel cactus

Petroglyphs

Petroglyph

I did three hikes out to this area in December and January. The first was to a petroglyph site I had read about years ago.  On kind of whim I decided to locate it on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, a few days before Christmas.I had put a pin on Google Earth and on On-X where I thought the site was located, but hadn't consulted the former and didn't use the latter in my efforts. I was just relying on memory and instinct. At first, Nessie and I tried a small hill covered with small basalt boulders that was just a half- mile north of the county road. No petroglyphs there, but we did see the first of several small man-made excavations with the appearance of low wall on the perimeter on the hilltop. I realized we were much too far east from what I could remember and so began driving out again on the good county roads. At first we went northeast, where we did spy a likely looking hill of larger basalt boulders, but they were quite close to some private property ( actually this bouldery hill is half private, half public land) and I didn't want to accidentally encounter anyone who might be nosy as to what I was doing.

 On we went eastwards through Flat Lake, a very modest depression that occasionally fills with water, and then past an old ranch that had the appearance of being abandoned, on into an area of large coppice dunes of reddish-orange sand. I kept eyeing a low hill that kept popping up to my left as we drove on the increasingly sandy, undulating, but still easily driven county road. I decided this was my hill and we found a place to park at wide spot in one of the swales. Nessie was reluctant most of the way, I'm not sure why, and the walking was entirely in loose sand, but we made it to the top pretty quickly. Shortly thereafter I began finding the petroglyphs on the black boulders submerged in the sand. I smiled at the ease of finding them, giving that oftentimes while armed with directions, apps and waypoints locating such an obscure place can prove quite difficult indeed. I circled the the little oval of a hilltop several times before I was satisfied I had seen most of what the place had to offer. We headed back. This time I let Nessie choose the route and we ended up a little west of the truck, but all was good.

 The second trip I investigated a prominent cuesta-like hill that stands some distance apart from the many pointy and rounded hills that make up Point of Rocks. There was another excavation on top and I found  a couple of petroglyph panels in the jumble of boulders against the low cliffs on the west side. I then went after a couple likely looking ridges that lie just to the west of Flat Lake, but found nothing much in the way of artifacts or rock art.

On a third trip I hiked to a trio of hills that are the southern edge of the main mass of Point of Rocks, and then also look at isolated hill very close to the county road. I found more excavations, one with a very obvious attempt at a wall around its rim, but no petroglyphs. There was the occasional chunk or flake of point making material but little else produced by humans that I could find as I wandered over rock and sand through the creosote, mesquite and stubby grass that filled the many shallow depressions scattered over the area. The desert was warm each outing, too warm really for the middle of winter, but I enjoyed being out there in an area I had only visited a few times over the 28 years I've lived here. 

Constructed ring

Agate chunk

Cairn with fallen post