Death Valley 2022/23

[MojaveGeek]

So my understanding is that "pictograph" refers to painted rock are, while "petroglyph" refers to chiped out art, but maybe I am mistaken? Please correct me. And I think intaglio refers to a class of geoglyph which is formed by removing material on the flat ground to make a shape, while an "alignment" (or "alinement") is a shape made by moving rocks from nearby into a line. I would like to learn more if I am using the terms incorrectly.

I heard a talk by the guy who wrote Dstretch. Seems like a very useful tool for the serious hunter! I guess it is all post-processing, so you can just snap your pix and then run it on them later? Or does it require raw instead of jpeg images?

Corridor is interesting because it has old, older, and newer rock incisions. I guess the Ubehebe mine was pretty busy at one point, or the whole mining district, and the Corridor is the natural highway for putting up your art or graffitti.

[Beardilocks]

Correct.  Picto is made with pigment, petro is made by chipping.  There are significantly less pictographs in DV than petros. 

I tend to use “rock alignment” as a blanket term for all forms made on the ground, whether you’re adding or subtracting rocks/gravel to make a design.  But yes, technically rock alignments are when you add rocks and intaglios are when you move gravel to make a shape.  I believe geoglyph is the proper blanket term, being separated into negative & positive versions. 

DStretch uses any photo in any format.  I’ve not dug in deep enough to see if any formats produce better results than others.

I have yet to uncover any petroglyphs actually in Corridor canyon itself.  But I have found a few cowboy signatures.

[MojaveGeek]

Ah, yes, when I referred to "Corridor" I really mean the whole route down through all those vertical strata and mini corridors down to the big one. I think the petros I saw there, and the photos you posted, were up higher.

Thanks for confirming my lay understanding of the rock art terms.

[Beardilocks]

Speaking of "collect all 10 pictograph sites" I added another over the weekend.  

Really cool site up in the Wildrose vicinity.



Oddly, right in the middle of the main panel I could see some writing and some odd markings.  If anyone has insight I would love to hear it.  Appears to be pencil names and some other odd markings.  Quite small.  


DStretch-ed the odd pattern next to the pencil markings so you could see the weirdness.  You can see the pencil name in the upper right.  The odd markings are in a similar pigment to the pictographs, but are in a completely different style and oddly symmetrical.  I would to hear any ideas on what that might be about.  


There were a number of other pictographs on the other wall that were nearly invisible to the naked eye, but not DStretch.








Stone out in front of the rock shelter, possibly a metate of sometime, although the archeological report of the site states that no signs of habitation were present.  What was present was only some cached deer antlers and a basketry seed beater in a back cleft.

[Beardilocks]

I also stopped at this petroglyph site.  It seems it had once been more well known, as there's an old sign there telling me to not "further vandalize" the site.  Which felt oddly accusatory towards me personally.  lol. 



Cool bird I believe.  You don't see a lot of those in DV.






Also found this, one of the older "historic" signatures that I've seen in the park.  (Other than some of the suspicious, potentially back-dated signature from the original party that bumbled through in '49, and subsequently came back later).  Someone oddly took the trouble to chip out the first part of the name.  Or used it for target practice with some very small rounds.  Looks like maybe "TS Shaw"? 


The only Shaw I get on Google (beyond the Shaw Brothers weird old kung fu movies) is Frank Shaw and he didn't appear until later with the 20 Mule Team hoopla.  My handy dandy Lingenfelter book talks of a Thomas Jefferson Shaw who arrived in the valley and started mining in 1866 (later saving a number of people from the Wheeler expedition).  

I'm really not sure who the hell was even in DV in 1855 (unless of course it's a fake).  Maybe it's not even "Shaw"...  Any ideas out there?

[MojaveGeek]

Looks like some successful hunting! And nice pix. No idea about that supposed 1855 sig. And indeed, who was hanging out there at that time?

[DAW89446]

Looks like maybe "TS Shaw"? 

I'm really not sure who the hell was even in DV in 1855 (unless of course it's a fake).  Maybe it's not even "Shaw"...  Any ideas out there?

It’s been a couple decades since I’ve been to this one. I think it’s “Haworth,” or possibly “Hayworth.” Note the “H” at 0230 from the second “5.” And yes, it’s been defaced since I’ve been there.

[Beardilocks]

Took a trip to Lee Flat and the Nelson Range.  Grabbing elevation now that it's really heating up.  Did a lot more than I will cover here but a lot of that was failure (Hunter Mt Rd is impassable to everything other than built rigs) and bailing for comfort.  I had several hikes I wanted to do in Saline Valley but I didn't want to camp in the valley at 95F and NPS has been vocal about trying to enforce the closure of Steele Pass Rd.  I was ok with just dipping up the road to take a hike, but I felt that camping out up there was looking for trouble.  

Having been forced to spend most of my time this winter in the main valley (Land of Pavement and Rude Tourists) I had missed the camaraderie and easy conversation of back country travel and meeting people of similar interest.  Met some cool folks, picked up a hitchhiker who is in the process of hiking the length of every mountain range in the park, and recovered and returned a Canadian motorcycle license plate to it's owner.  Nice change of pace.

First off the flowers have been lovely everywhere.  No superbloom but plenty enough for me.





Long hot drive out to Lee Flat, but it's always worth it.


I hiked out to a fairly well known canyon to check out some petroglyphs and cowboy signatures out here for the first time.  The site was much more expansive than I had imagined.  

Glyphs start to trickle in on the way up the canyon.


This very odd modern one.  Almost looks like they were playing a game and scribbling out losses.


The sheep depicted here (and there's a LOT of f**king sheep depicted here) run the gamut of styles from various regions that I've seen before in Mojave, along the Colorado River, UT, etc.  Some of the styles here I have never seen in DV before.


After a few hundred yards the trickle of glyphs became a flood.




Sheep in a box, sheep with big balls, sheep with horns longer than it's body, all the kinds of sheeps.


Wild legs on this sheep.  Jazz Hooves.


Odd anthropomorph here.  Solid, squarish body, space helmet, and... a tail?  A whip?  Maybe he's plugged in to something.


Lots of wild geometric patterns as well.  More than one usually finds in DV.  An interesting place.




Glyphs even in tight spaces and around corners.










I've seen this depiction of a top-down sheep view before, but not in DV.


Quite a few sheep-upside-down glyphs sprinkled in.  Successful hunts?


I think there's a lizard there on the left of the main rock.


Hmmm... I have my doubts that what appears to be a monkey pooping is a legit ancient glyph.  But you can see much older, heavily patinated glyphs behind it.




Loads of "cowboy" or historic carvings as well.  Including a couple of very NSFW ones that I can't post.  People have felt the compulsion to draw dicks on things since the dawn of time I guess.  Or the dawn of dicks anyway...  Lol.




This is a very strange glyph.  Another chunky anthropomorph that seems to be holding up the skinny guy at gun point?


Very strange older design.  Haven't seen one like this before.


This one was 7-8ft tall.


Also extremely odd.  A glider??




Almost as many atlatl glyphs as sheep.  And a big hands and feet guy here.


I was hoping to find this one.  I can't find any reference anywhere else to the Ubehebe Bunch.  


And this guy with a balloon.  Or a poorly drawn atlatl.


Very cool place.  I know that, even though I spent over an hour exploring, I probably only saw about half of the glyphs.  But one can only stomach so many sheep at once.  So many bloody sheep.

[Beardilocks]

Later I took a drive up to some of the Nelson Range mines.  Digonnet mentioned there was a good view of Saline Valley from the Anton & Pobst copper mine way up over the ridge.  He wasn't lying.  It must have been an insane amount of work to cut that road all the way in there in 1903.  At least in this case it seems to have been worth it, as it was one of the areas richest mines. 

Pano of the view into Saline Valley and even the Racetrack on the right.


Wide angle of the same.


Truck for scale (lol).




Gratuitous view shots.


Sunset at the Racetrack.

[Beardilocks]

And I finally got around to some real photography.  The low clouds on the horizon really make it look like a weird multi-shot photo montage, but it's just as it was shot in camera. Only manipulation is some gradient exposure correction top to bottom.