Destination: Volcanic Tablelands
Cost: Gas only
I was traveling northward to celebrate a big birthday - 60
to be exact. (Wow, I can actually say it.) I wanted to impart meaning to this
milestone, and also to come to grips with my impermanence, so I decided to visit the Red Canyon Petroglyphs, just
north of Bishop.
The high desert east of the Sierra Nevada is fine rock art
territory, with panels created by Paiute-Shoshone perhaps as far back as 9,000
years ago. The most astounding array is in the Coso Mountains, on the protected
land of the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station. These glyphs can only be viewed
on guided tours led by the Maturango
Museum. But the Volcanic
Tablelands north of Bishop have some awe-inspiring panels on basaltic
outcroppings scattered throughout the sagebrush plain. They're easily
accessible and therefore subject to theft and vandalism.
Because of this, public agencies prefer not to put the
locations of this ancient art out on websites, but instead ask that visitors
stop by the information
center in Bishop, where they will provide directions. This way, they can
see the faces of those planning to visit, which deters harm.
It was a climate-change warm February afternoon when I
arrived, without so much as a whisper of a breeze - rare for this locale. A
family had parked nearby, and kids were scrambling over rocks at one end of the
parking area, so I went in the opposite direction and stopped at one of my
favorite panels.
I love that some of this art is so identifiable (bighorn,
footprint, man) and some is so abstract (spaceship? map? mantra?) Why were
these ancient people here? What were their thoughts? What were their lives
like? The glyphs offer more questions than answers. Through some casual
research I've learned that these sites were probably visited by shamans and the
rock carvings were often part of rituals which included the use of natural
hallucinogenics. It's likely these outings coincided with hunting events and
maybe this art was created to appease the gods or rally the troops. The power
of these carvings lies in the fact that
we can never know and must extract our own meaning.
I left the main site and began walking eastward toward the
majestic Sierra. The views behind me of Chalfant Valley, Boundary Peak and the
White Mountains were awesome. I'd heard that there are many rock art sites on
the Tablelands that aren't marked with kiosks and parking areas and you just
need to wander around the outcroppings to find them - so I began doing this. In
the past, this has not been a successful experiment, but today I found a
solitary design at the top of a plateau that intrigued me. It looked something
like this:
This clearly meant something to the artist - but could it
mean something to me? The best I could come up with is that home contains a
person, a hearth and water - and you can carry this with you. Not a bad
sentiment from a rock.
