Death Valley 2022/23

[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.