Handprints Cave

This has to rate up there in my "top 5" favorite all time desert hikes. What are my favorite hike criteria? 
1. Challenging: One of those hikes that I question whether or not I can do it successfully.
2. Natural beauty: Always more fun to hike in an area with great rock formations, Joshua Tree forests, etc.
3. Significant discovery: Discovering something new (arch, rock art, etc.) really makes a hike memorable.
4. Desert solitude: I love hiking in remote areas.

Handprints Cave checks all the boxes. I had GPS coordinates for the approximate location, but I didn't know how to get there. It's deep in the Wonderland of Rocks, and it requires good navigational skills over a boulder-strewn landscape with no trail to follow. I was using Google Earth to plot a route, and it was highly questionable if the route would be passable. I took you to Garretts Arch last week, and Handprints Cave is twice as far as Garrett's arch through some very challenging terrain. I won't be sharing the location of Handprints Cave.

As I set off, my mindset was I would be very lucky to actually find Handprints Cave. I had recently hiked to Garrett's Arch, so I had recent photos of much of the first half of the hike. It wasn't until I saw the red obelisk (above) that I took my camera out of my backpack.

I stopped only long enough for a quick photo and a swig of water as I passed by Garrett's Arch. From this point on, I would be covering ground I had never hiked before.

Interesting rock formation.

It wasn't long before I reached a dense manzanita "jungle". Getting past the thick growth of manzanita was a challenge, and I remember thinking that, if I ever do this hike again, I need to find a way around this area. The manzanita had these beautiful red-orange berries that were the same color as the branches.

Looking back, I spotted this rock formation that reminded me of an old man taking a snooze!

I came to an area I thought was finally a clearing, but it turned out to be a large dead area. I was surprised to see a huge pile of debris in the middle of the dead manzanita. I'm pretty sure it was a very large pack rat nest: About 8-9' in diameter and approximately 5' tall. I've never seen one even close to this large.

Allow me to take you on a little detour. Surprisingly, pack rat dens are of scientific value. It turns out the nests are divided into various chambers, including one where all the garbage is stored. It's called a midden, and they are of great interest. Middens in desert areas with rock outcroppings are the most highly valued. Funny, I've seen these middens out in east Joshua Tree many, many times, but I just didn't know what they were! Anyway, protected from the elements in a rocky crevice or cavity, large masses of pack rat debris can accumulate. The material is cemented together with highly-concentrated pack rat urine to form a hard, durable amber-like material called amberat. The pack rats refuse pile or midden may remain undisturbed for thousands of years, growing larger with each generation of residents. Amberat is invaluable because it contains a record kept by all pack rates that ever lived in the den. Plant fragments are well preserved in amberat, and can be identified even after many thousands of years. Middens are a major source of evidence for reconstructing past vegetation and environments, from the Pleistocene through the Holocene. Some middens have been found dating to at least 40,000 years before present.

In the photo above, I'm guessing that if you were to dig through that large pile of pack rat debris, you would find a huge amberat. The stories it could tell us would be fascinating!

Detour over, and back to the hike...

Finally out of the manzanita jungle, I came across this interesting flat rock formation. Sometimes it's possible to find bedrock mortars or other signs of habitation in areas like this, but nothing obvious jumped out at me.

As I continued to follow the wash, I came across petroglyphs on this large boulder. The closer I got, the more petroglyphs I saw. What a nice surprise!

Perfect balance!!

Finally, after miles of bushwhacking, boulder climbing, and rock-hopping (with a little bit of hiking sprinkled in), I found Handprints Cave. It's hard to appreciate scale in this photo, so I'll resort to a scientific description: The boulder is humongous!!!!! I only had to stoop slightly when entering the cave. It's one of the largest shelters I've ever seen. But like so many things in Joshua Tree, if you weren't looking for it (or even if you were, but just not paying close attention) you could easily walk right by it and never know it was there. I felt a sense of relief and satisfaction wash over me. I had found the cave and I felt confident that I had the energy and ability to make my way back. Now lets take a look inside...

As my eyes adjusted to the shadows, I was blown away by this huge grinding surface with the mano sitting on top of it. I've come across a few well defined grinding surfaces before, but never the mano that was used in the grinding process. This was a real treat!

Another photo of the grinding slick and mono- this one looking from inside the cave toward the entrance.

Close up of mano and grinding slick. You can clearly see the smooth indentation in the rock surface where the mono has been used for grinding and crushing.

This mano was a big sucker! I'm guessing this guy weighed in the neighborhood of 8-10 lbs. Difficult to pick up with one hand, this site was probably used to grind larger nuts or seeds. Likely this mano was rolled rather than lifted.

As I turned my attention toward the cave walls, I could see some faint petroglyphs.

This photo gives a good feel for the size of Handprints Cave. I'm about half-way in the cave, shooting toward the cave entrance. It turns our there is a large back opening to the cave, which makes it feel even more roomy and comfortable. Plenty of fresh air in this shelter! The pictographs are overhead right. I saw little or no rock art on the left side of the cave.

One of the first pictos I noticed in Handprints Cave was this beautiful crosshatching. I've seen similar to this in other areas of the Park. I'm certain it has meaning, but I have no idea what that meaning might be.

A slightly different angle shows additional pictos below the crosshatching. I should mention I used DStretch on all the picto photos to enhance their visibility.

Next to the crosshatching is a beautiful wagon wheel motif picto. Or maybe that's a sunburst?

Backing away a little, there are clearly two wagon wheels, with something in the center between them. It looks like multiple parallel lines going different directions.

That completes our tour of the front half of Handprints Cave. On my next post, we will look at the back half of the site. It's spectacular. I'll give you a less than subtle hint about what you will be seeing: It has to do with why they call it Handprints Cave!

Until then, stay safe and stay healthy.

Thanks for stopping by!!

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