In search of Petroglyphs

12/15/2018

Well, we didn’t find any Petroglyphs but it wasn’t for tying. We had a  map complete with GPS coordinates but no Petroglyphs. Actually there was supposed to be a mine near by but didn’t find it either. Perhaps we need to make sure we were putting in the GPS coordinates correctly:)

This time we’re in the Harquahala Mountains Wilderness which is basically out our door. But we drove a couple of miles down the road to start our trek.

First we had to go through a gate, then bounced around for quit a ways. We found a mine, not the one we were looking for, then a spot where someone dug a hole or a mine that was covered up. Once we got to the coordinates where the mine and Petroglyphs were supposed to be we were obviously in the wrong place because there was no roads leading to the mine area.

Once we reached the GPS coordinates we walked around the area looking for the kinda of rocks that were likely used for Petroglyphs but no luck.

It’s not the easiest to walk around some of these areas. The flatter areas have rocks of various sizes. Some rocks, bowling ball size, are so close together so you need to step on them, the hill sides area covered is loose broken rocks that wants to slide out from under your feet. Then don’t forget about all the cacti along with everything else out here, if it’s growing……. it has sharp thrones. One last point, there is NO SHADE anywhere.

I guess its time to ask around to see if anyone knows where they are.

The day wasn’t a total waste, we enjoyed being out and about with nobody around although on our way toward pavement we did meet 2 side by sides.

The highlight of the day had to been seeing the heard of Big Horn Sheep. Mary spotted one a couple of hundred yards away, then we spotted 3-4 more along with some strange white lumps on the ground, looking closer we realized that white lumps were actually Big Horn Sheep butts. They were laying down with their heads away from us. They blended in so well with the surrounding area that it took us a while to figure out what the lumps were.

We watched them for about 20-30 minutes, there were about 10-12 in the group. They could care less as we got out of the jeep and got out the big camera and tripod, one even started walking our way, checking us out.