Petroglyphs

I finally did it! I finally saw the petroglyphs that Ridgecrest and China Lake are so famous for. Rocket Boy went on the tour (you have to go on a guided tour, because the petroglyphs are on base) in March 2009, about a MONTH after we moved here. A month! (I couldn't go with him because children under 10 are not allowed and we had no one to leave the twins with.) And now here it is three years and eight months later and I finally got to do it.

The fall tour dates were posted in August, and I decided I'd like to go in November, when it would be cooler. I sent in my check for $30 and all my info (the Navy does a background check on everyone) and soon received notification that I'd gotten my first choice of date, November 11th. I had to buy new hiking boots (no tennis shoes allowed) and dig up my passport (something to prove I was a citizen).

On the actual day, last Sunday, I set my alarm for 5:30 am, and was off to the Maturango Museum by 6:15 (we had to be there by 6:30). It was absolutely freezing. Well, I'd gotten my wish on that score. At 6:30, we were ushered into the museum to sign various forms and watch a short video about the petroglyphs. There were 16 people in our group (most from LA, San Diego, and elsewhere in California), and 3 guides. Then we split into carpools and drove to the entrance to the base, where they searched all the cars and lectured us on what we could and couldn't do.

One thing you can't do is take photographs on the hour-long drive to Little Petroglyph Canyon, so we stowed our cameras in the back of the cars. You're also not allowed to have your cell phone turned on. I was sorry I didn't have my camera available when we turned on to the last road leading to the canyon and were joined by a herd of beautiful wild horses -- the first I'd seen since moving here.

Here we are just setting off for the canyon, after parking the cars and getting organized again. The funky stuff on the ground is some kind of plastic that they put down so that they could push people in wheelchairs to the edge of the canyon. You have to be able to walk to go down into the actual canyon -- it's extremely rocky.

Here is the only photo I took looking down into the canyon. This is actually the upper part of the canyon -- we spent most of our time in the lower part -- but it gives a sense of what it's like. The whole time you're just walking through this very narrow canyon with walls of rocks on both sides -- covered with petroglyphs.

I had hoped that our guides would lecture us on rock art as we traversed the canyon. I knew almost nothing about the petroglyphs and I wanted to know more. But for the most part the guides just walked along with us, occasionally pointing out a special glyph. I don't know whether some tour guides are more talkative, or whether this is standard. Many people on the tour seemed to know a lot about what we were seeing -- some had even taken the tour before -- so maybe that's why the guides were quiet.

But since the tour I've done some reading, and I guess people don't truly know what the petroglyphs mean and why they're there. The general belief seems to be that the petroglyphs were carved into the rock by shamans, medicine men, after going on a "vision quest" or trance. The petroglyphs represent the visions that the shaman had. I wish someone had explained this to me on the trip, because it would have made everything less confusing. For example, I could not understand why there were so many pictures of bighorn sheep:

and not more common desert animals, such as tortoises and lizards. But apparently bighorn sheep were spirit helpers.

There are also many petroglyphs of atlatls

and I don't think anyone really knows why. But don't quote me. They have various ways of dating the petroglyphs, and while some in this area are believed to be as much as 16,000 years old, most are probably less than 2000 years old. Some were made as recently as the early part of the 20th century.

We walked a long way down the canyon, until we came to the "waterfalls," or what would be waterfalls if there were any water flowing. There's a little water collected in pools below each waterfall (on the day I went it was ice), and you don't want to fall in it, so you have to creep along a rock edge.

It doesn't look bad in the photo, and I didn't find it too difficult, but some people had a lot of trouble with it. Physically, the tour was an odd experience for me. I almost backed out of going because I thought I wasn't in good enough shape -- and it's true that I was probably the second-fattest person on the tour. Maybe third-fattest. But I was also probably the third-youngest person on the tour, and that made all the difference. I'm sure I would have enjoyed the tour more if I'd been 50 pounds thinner, but being 10 or 20 years younger than the other participants made a surprisingly significant difference. Note to self: Do things NOW, do not wait until some mythical time in the future when I'm thinner.

Here are a few more photos. I think the squiggly lines in this first one are supposed to be rain. The bighorn sheep were associated with rain in Native American religious beliefs.

 This photo shows how the petroglyphs are all over the rocks, some high up, some low down.

 Some people in the group were concerned that this bighorn sheep (being killed) had a baby behind it. But it also could have been a dog (helping with the kill). And in any case, it was all from visions and trances, not a real hunting picture.

 I think the shapes in this last one are supposed to be birds.

And here I am -- I asked a woman in the group to take my photo, just to prove I was really there. Maybe I'll put this on our Christmas card -- I've got that bright red turtleneck accompanying my developing sunburn. We were out there from maybe 8:30 am to 3:00 pm -- even in November, that's a lot of sunshine.

We got back to the museum in Ridgecrest around 4 pm. I was just blitzed, would have liked to go to bed as soon as I got home, but of course Rocket Boy was blitzed himself, having taken care of the little darlings all day alone. So I took over. Kids, kids, when will they get easier??? But it was a very cool experience and I'm so glad I got to go before we say farewell to Ridgecrest.