Surprise Rock

 On a recent hike in Joshua Tree National Park, I happened to be in the neighborhood of Surprise Rock. It's been a really long time since my last post about Surprise Rock (February of 2017... wow, where has the time gone??). Before I take you to Surprise Rock, I'll show you some of the scenery in the area. It was a beautiful day to be out hiking!

 

This was taken using my ultra wide angle (or perhaps fisheye is more accurate?) 12mm lens. It's fun to shoot with, and sometimes you can use the distortion to your advantage. The rocky overhang is greatly accentuated in this photo.
 

 

The Red Obelisk boulder is a landmark people use out here where it's easy to get turned around. It's dead center in the photo above. Below is a closer view.

 

The Freak Brothers rock formation with the three distinct summits is impossible to miss. The large Pinion Pin on the left is probably at least 20' tall, so this is a huge formation!
 

My friend P.T. on the right.

The thing about Surprise Rock is it looks like a big round boulder (in an area with thousands of big round bounders) when you hike by it. As a matter of fact, I had trouble finding it again on this hike, even though I've hiked here a number of times in the past. It's not until you push through the bushes and move around the back side of the boulder that you see it's hollowed out. Then, when you look closer, your jaw will drop!

Same photo with a little Dstretch (color enhancer).

The sheer number of pictographs (seen here in red) and etched petroglyphs (white or light color) is mind boggling! It's impossible not to ask yourself who made these? Why? What do they mean? I've accepted that we will never be able to answer these questions to any degree of certainty, but they are fascinating just the same. I will hazard an opinion, and that's all it is: Multiple people made these pictographs and petroglyphs over a very long period of time. Some look much more recent, and some are very faded and ancient-looking. Some are very high up on the rock and hard to see. Others are in a very low, dirt-level alcove. The longer you look and let your eyes adjust, the more you see. It's almost as if the ancients would travel this corridor on a regular basis, and add to it. Some of the more recent rock art is written directly over the top of older rock art.

 

An ah ha! moment during this visit to Surprise Rock: The etched-in-the-rock petroglyphs are newer than the red dye pictographs. In the photo above, you can clearly see a petroglyph that has been etched right over the top of a red pictograph. I had always assumed the petroglyphs were older, but that's not the case here.

 

 
On my first hike to this area, we came across a recent bighorn sheep kill. It was both fascinating and disturbing (if you're squeamish, you might want to skip the next couple photos)

February 2017

May 2023

Not much left now, and in a slightly different location. The skull and horns appear to be gone. In February of 2017, it was a very recent kill. I remember getting the heebie geebies thinking "Am I in a mountain lion den? With it's recent kill where in might see me as a competitor for it's food??" We made a hasty retreat!

 

Thanks for joining me on this hike. The Native American rock art in this area is fascinating!

Linking with Skywatch Friday.