Three Rivers Petroglyphs site

We arrived at Three Rivers Petroglyphs site in the early afternoon on Friday. We had a bit of a jolt when we saw a sign saying "Three Rivers Petroglyphs campground closed" then realized it was referring to  the Three Rivers Recreation Area, not the petroglyph site.We have a new host and hostess this year. Nice folks, and after a brief visit we set up camp in the same spot we had last year. Steve checked his calendar and we were here on exactly the same date! Actually there aren't a lot of decisions to make about "which space" as there are only two with services. In this kind of weather having the electricity to run the air conditioner is nice, and the fee is only $10 a night. Hard to beat!

Everything looks pretty much the same except for the effects of the extremely cold weather ( 18 below!) and the drought.  Compare a creosote bush from last year, and the same one this year. The shots were taken from a slightly different angle but believe me it is the same bush!



    







We've spent many years wandering the desert and we've never seen creosote shrubs look this dry. It isn't hard to imagine what would happen with one little spark landing on vegetation this dry.

Knowing we were headed for temperatures in the high nineties we got an early start on Saturday morning. They open the gate to the trail at 8 AM, so we were there shortly thereafter. No dogs are allowed on the trail, so Molly had a nice, air conditioned nap while we hiked in the sun. What's that about a dog's life? We pretty much had the trail to ourselves, not surprising this time of year, though we have seen several cars come and go in the parking lot. It seems few venture far on the trail before they decide to head back for shade and water.

We pretty well explored the hills closest to the campground last year (read  last year's blog entry for more on the campground and pics of the petroglyphs), so this year we are focusing on those farther out, past the shaded rest area.

This is truly a treasure house for petroglyph enthusiasts. The trails are easy to follow in most cases, though you have to be a bit of a mountain goat to get to some of the best glyphs. The area near the beginning of the trail has a few numbers posted and there's a little guide book that explains a little about each figure. Farther out, where we went today, you're on your own. Of course, it's all open to individual interpretation anyway. Von Daniken would probably say they were left by space visitors, Levan Martineau  would explain the meaning of each panel as if he were reading a newspaper, James Keyser would toss in the concept of recording dreams and tribal history, then of course there's always the theory proposed by one of our neighboring campers, "it's just graffiti."   Whatever your view, it's clear from the various stages of patina development on older glyphs that this area was used for many generations so the area held some specific importance for a lot of people over time. It's about four miles, round trip, from the beginning of the trail to the farthest peak. And aside from the petroglyphs, you have a great view of the surrounding countryside.

We did our best to cover the largest area today, leaving two other outcrops to visit in the future. Here's the album of some of the best of what we saw today (click on the photo).