Grimes Point Petroglyph Trail

Walking with the Ancient Ones

Grimes Point, one of the largest and most accessible of the thousands of Native American petroglyph sites in the U.S, lies just east of the small farming town of Fallon, Nevada on Highway 50.

 

Designated as a National Recreation Trail in 1978, the one mile, 1280m, interpretive dirt trail is a walk back through ancient times when a Hunter-Gatherer people frequented the area at least 10,000 years ago leaving behind their legacy of rock art  with lines, circles, dots and abstract humanoid and animal shapes.

As with all petroglyph sites including Grimes Point there is little authentic information regarding the true purpose of the rock etching, however they appear to be along animal migration routes where water, plants and wildlife were plentiful.

The land around Grimes Point was much different 10,000 years ago, as was the climate.  The Ice Age was just drawing to an end and ancient Lake Lahontan was beginning to recede, leaving behind marshy remnants where waterfowl and mammals thrived.  The plants and animals of the area would have provided sustenance, clothing and building materials that were used by the hunter-gathers.

As a testament to their existence or place in history abstract designs were etched in the dark residue on rocks, called Desert Varnish which is created over a vast period of time from dead bacteria impregnated with iron and manganese salts.

At the kiosks, a Grimes Point Petroglyph Trail brochure is available that will give information about each group of rock carvings. A longer and more strenuous trail leads around the mountain to a major archaeological site,  Hidden Cave. Occupied between 3,400 to 4,000 years ago, Hidden Cave was used by the hunter-gathers as a cache or storage site.

All petroglyph sites should be respected because many were used as outdoor places of worship.

The petroglyph boulders should never be walked on and due to the oils in the hands they should never be touched. All of these sites and the rocks therein are objects of antiquity and are protected by state and federal laws.

Please regard the rocks and etchings as sacred monuments of history, left by a vanishing people.

Recommended Reading:

Patterson, Alex. 1992. A Field Guide to Rock Art Symbols of the Greater Southwest, Johnson Books, Boulder, Colorado.

No images on this blog are within Public Domain.

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With my Nikon and tripod, my goal is to recreate the scene as it appears in nature, to preserve in a photographic image the awesome, yet simplistic beauty of the scene that waits around a bend or over a hill. Sometimes it's a colorful landscape, and many times I'm allowed in the presence of the numerous creatures that adapt to life in the wild.

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