After finishing my relatively early
morning hike at Split Rock I got back in my car, and contemplated what to do, next. It still didn't seem that warm and it was still pretty early. So I wanted to get a bit more hiking in, before retreating to my motel room to wait for evening.
I continued west on Park Blvd, staying on Park Blvd when I passed the road to Keyes View. I stopped in a parking lot, about 4/10ths of a mile past that turn, to, again, contemplate my next action. Pulled into a small parking lot. There was an informational sign, so I stopped to read about Minverva Hoyt.
After reading that, I noticed that there was a trailhead sign. I didn't look at it too carefully, but I saw that it was supposed to be 1.5 miles long, and it would lead to petroglyphs and Hidden Valley. Of course, I'd been to Hidden Valley before, and it was obvious that this would be a mostly flat trail. One and a half miles each way seemed very doable, and I could turn around any time I wanted. But petroglyphs! So I put my day pack back on and headed down the trail.
In retrospect, I think this trail starts off along what is shown on my Trails Illustrated map as "Old Lost Horse Road," but which was signed at the trailhead as "Lost Horse Valley Trail."
After starting off in a northwestern direction, it makes a 90 degree right turn after just over 3/4 of a mile. Then it heads right to the end of the parking area a Hidden Valley.
I hadn't seen any indication of petroglyphs along the way, although I did see plenty of Joshua Tree. So I looked more carefully at the trailhead sign on this side of the trail, and still didn't really figure out where the petroglyphs were. I did recall seeing what looked like a spur trail towards the rocks, a half mile or so back. So I quickly walked back to that spur, headed towards the rocks, and wandered some along the outer edge of Hidden Valley.
I eventually came across "Zombie Woof," which didn't look like much, and weren't the petroglyphs that were promised. The rocks up there on Zombie Woof did look stained, however, and I suppose geologists and anthropologist could look at these faint and not-obviously shaped to represent anything as being unnatural, and, therefore, of ancient native American origin.
I also saw desert pantina-covered rocks all around the edge of Hidden Valley, but could not determine if any of the marks were anything other than random breaks in the pantina.
I eventually made my way along those rocks, all the way back to the Hidden Valley trailhead.
I took another, closer look at the trailhead sign, followed the path more carefully, and examined both small outcroppings on the left side of the trail (as you leave from Hidden Valley). Saw the desert pantina on some of the rocks. And, on the second set of rocks, saw what appeared to be the actual petroglyphs I was promised. Definitely not distinct and obvious from a distance, but there they were.
Few shapes were well-defined, so this wasn't the most dramatic example of petroglyphs I had seen. Yet, for the Mojave, they were pretty clear.
One of these days, I'll have to visit a few other sites in the Mojave Preserve, to see if I can find what appear to be more obvious signs of ancient communication.
As I approached the rocks, by the way, a large hawk first approached from the other side, then veered away, when he saw me.
A bit after that, I saw this fairly-large rabbit, just sitting there. I didn't want to spoke him, as that might have drawn the raptors attention. So I snapped a few pictures, but kept my distance. And we both got to walk away from this experience, alive.
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