10,000-Year-Old Art Galleries, Wild Horses, and Exotic Felines
Visiting California’s High Desert
Story by Diane LeBow. Photos by John Montgomery
It’s early morning on a sunny day with perfect blue skies and crisp dry high desert air, as we walk into the Little Petroglyph Canyon. Our small group escorted by a guide from the Ridgecrest Maturango Museum enters a narrow rock gallery and looks around. We are surrounded by images carved into the rocks. They depict humans, animals, and who knows what figures from 10,000 years ago. Our guide tells us these early artists used a hammerstone to peck at the black-brown patina revealing the lighter colored basalt underneath.
Little Petroglyph Canyon is one of several sites in the volcanic bluffs above the Pleistocene bed of China Lake. Since 2005, this area is designated the Coso Rock Art National Historic Landmark and is located on the remote and highly secure Naval Air Weapons Station. The Maturango Museum organizes the only tours to this amazing area that contains the largest collection of rock art in North America, with over 14,000 carvings in the major canyons alone. The remoteness of the site as well as the carefully controlled guided visits (only weekends from March to December) contribute to the pristine condition of the art.
Is that a man or woman, I wonder, or a cigar with legs? The rocks are covered with brilliant red ocher and golden lichen. Total stillness reigns, except for the slight breeze around my ears and occasional chukar squawks which sound like a stick being pulled across a washboard. Although generally easy going, the hike involves some leaps of faith from one boulder to another.
I look at a figure in one of the glyphs and imagine he is looking back at me. Our guide notes that his headdress and decorative robe indicate that probably he was a shaman. Others are stick figures — some distinctly male. Several show atlatyl (a spear thrower device) glyphs, including many with human figures spearing sheep. The fact that glyphs show both the ancient atlatyls, dating from the earliest period, as well as bows and arrows, indicate a timeline of thousands of years that this area has been inhabited. Many are big horn sheep which still inhabit this area. Others are snakes, deer, birds, or spirals.
We are fortunate that two wildlife specialists, Jeff and Vicki Davis, on their day off from their work for the Department of Fish and Game, join our small group. Ironically for us, their work involves big horn sheep recovery. “Look, there’s some 10,000 year old big horn sheep,” Vicki points out one petroglyph of a big bellied sheep. They also do mountain lion capture. (when they need to be relocated for their safety or that of the sheep.) Jeff shows us how to recognize coyote and bobcat tracks as well as their scat. Scooping up a fresh sample, he sniffs and says, “Definitely bobcat. It’s mustier.” I take his word for it and pass up the opportunity to sniff for myself.
Our home base is Ridgecrest, 150 miles north of Los Angeles on the Upper Mojave Desert, just east of the southern Sierra. Not your average small town, Ridgecrest is the home of many rocket scientists. At breakfast that morning, someone commented, “There are more Ph.D.’s per capita here than any other place in the USA.”
In fact, the area itself is so interesting that the Ridgecrest CVB puts out a five day self guided tour of thirty-two adventures around Ridgecrest. One is the Trona Pinnacles. These otherworldly formations of porous tufa towers rising from Searles Dry Lake basin, dating from the Pleistocene times, 100,000 years ago, are a popular location for film sets — and for photography buffs. “Planet of the Apes,” “Dinosaur,” and “Star Trek V” were all filmed here.
Want to see some exotic cats close up without the airfare to Africa? Visit the Feline Conservation Center and Exotic Feline Breeding Compound which is home to 13 of the world’s most endangered big cats. We said hello to a Fishing Cat cub from South East Asia, who is given live goldfish to practice his skills. Among the other well cared for guests at the center are an ocelot, two baby jaguars, several Amur leopards, and my favorite, a serval, who looked like he’d been put together by a committee, as his tiny head, large ears, and long legs seem oddly mismatched — but he seemed ok with it.
Being a horse lover, the Ridgecrest Regional Wild Horse and Burro Facility was a must on my list of places to visit around Ridgecrest. The facility’s job is to manage the wild horses and burros in the area and prepare some of them for adoption. Head wrangler, Dan Anderson, sitting on his favorite mustang, a handsome black fellow named Moose, told us that they had arranged 280 adoptions the previous year. “People are realizing that mustangs make good saddle animals.”
Another fun spot to visit is the living ghost town of Randsburg, which dates from 1896, when it was a gold and silver mining camp. Looking like he’d been around since then, 81 year old Cowboy Bob was lounging in front of the Randsburg Inn, with its sign “We’re Hopen for business.” Just next door is Charlie’s Ore House Antiques: “The Best Lil Ore House in Randsburg.”
On the way home over the Sierras, we pass beautiful Lake Isabella. Already we’re looking forward to a return visit. I’m sure the Big Horn Sheep galleries will still be there, and hopefully Cowboy Bob as well.
If you go:
Contact the Maturango Museum www.maturango.org, 760–375–6900
for updates on tours.
Enjoy over 200 species of wild flowers in the spring. To continue your adventure: Death Valley is 2 ½ hours NE of Ridgecrest.
How to get there: from the Bay Area,
Take Interstate 5 south to Bakersfield, Highway 58 east to Mohave, Highway 14 north to Highway 178 and follow the signs to Ridgecrest.
Accommodations:
Heritage Inn and Suites www.heritageinnsuites.com/
Restaurants
Kristy’s Family Restaurant, popular with locals for breakfast and lunch
Victoria’s at The Heritage Inn,
Diane’s latest book:
Dancing on the Wine-Dark Sea: Memoir of a Trailblazing Woman’s Travels, Adventures, and Romance is available through bookstores or online.
