Petroglyphs

BISHOP, Calif. - Ancient hunters and gatherers etched vivid petroglyphs on cliffs in the Eastern Sierra that withstood winds, flash floods and earthquakes for more than 3,500 years. Thieves needed only a few hours to cut them down and haul them away. Federal authorities say at least four petroglyphs have been taken from the site. A fifth was defaced with deep saw cuts on three sides. A sixth had been removed and broken during the theft, then propped against a boulder near a visitor parking lot. Dozens of other petroglyphs were scarred by hammer strikes and saw cuts.

Federal investigators acting on a tip have recovered five petroglyph panels that thieves cut from an eastern Sierra site sacred to Native Americans, U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials said Thursday. The location of the petroglyphs, stolen last fall, was disclosed in an anonymous letter to authorities. By failing to sign the letter, its author walked away from a $9,000 reward - a sign that the tip may have come from the thieves themselves. Experts had said the petroglyphs would fetch little money from collectors and would be difficult to fence because of widespread publicity about the theft.

Federal investigators acting on a tip have recovered five petroglyph panels that thieves cut from an eastern Sierra site sacred to Native Americans, U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials said Thursday. The location of the petroglyphs, stolen last fall, was disclosed in an anonymous letter to authorities. By failing to sign the letter, its author walked away from a $9,000 reward - a sign that the tip may have come from the thieves themselves. Experts had said the petroglyphs would fetch little money from collectors and would be difficult to fence because of widespread publicity about the theft.

BISHOP, Calif. - Ancient hunters and gatherers etched vivid petroglyphs on cliffs in the Eastern Sierra that withstood winds, flash floods and earthquakes for more than 3,500 years. Thieves needed only a few hours to cut them down and haul them away. Federal authorities say at least four petroglyphs have been taken from the site. A fifth was defaced with deep saw cuts on three sides. A sixth had been removed and broken during the theft, then propped against a boulder near a visitor parking lot. Dozens of other petroglyphs were scarred by hammer strikes and saw cuts.

The nation's newest national monument occupies the least likely of sites--7,300 acres of rock, grass and desert sagebrush along the blackened edge of an ancient lava flow bordered by sprawling housing developments. But it was here that the ancestors of modern-day Pueblo Indians etched more than 15,000 petroglyphs into huge basalt boulders, creating a vast gallery of sacred images that one expert has described as "an outdoor church."

"There's nothing out there," a Mammoth-oriented friend once remarked of the Eastern Sierra high-desert towns along California 14 and U.S. Highway 395. Having explored the Owens Valley, my husband, Dick, and I begged to differ. Now we were headed for new turf--the Sierra foothills city of Ridgecrest and a treasury of petroglyphs, some predating skiing by, ummm . . . say, 15,000 years?

They passed this way for thousands of years, pausing at a desolate hillside to leave their marks. Crude drawings of four-legged animals and other creatures of their experience were pecked into the volcanic rocks of the Hedgpeth Hills for reasons that are not fully understood. Little is known about who they were or why they came. But the petroglyphs created over scores of generations shout one message quite clearly.

Carved into the soft side of a ridge that soars high above surrounding farmland, ancient Indian petroglyphs are disappearing beneath a blanket of modern graffiti. Archeologists say the circles, dots, lines and squiggles at Petroglyph Point are spiritually laden symbols that were carved by Modoc Indians centuries before they were driven from this remote corner of northeastern California by the U.S. Army in 1873.

THERE are some nifty pictures to be seen in them thar hills -- once, that is, you've risen at the crack of dawn, obtained security clearance, had your car searched, listened to a pep talk from the local police and driven deep into a weapons testing base. The pictures, or rather petroglyphs, are well worth the inconvenience.

On the west side of Albuquerque, an irresistible force has encountered an immovable object. The force is progress, in the form of a proposed six-lane highway that would open the way for this booming city to expand farther west. The steadfast object is the 17-mile-long Petroglyph National Monument--about 17,000 religious etchings on volcanic rock, created by Native Americans through the centuries. Authorities want to cut a 300-foot-wide, quarter-mile-long band through the monument's lava rock, destroying between two and 10 petroglyphs to build the extension of the Paseo del Norte roadway.

Reporting from the Providence Mountains State Recreation Area, Calif. There's Down Under, like the story on New Zealand on the left side of this page, and then there's down under. I chose the latter. Like that journey, my trip to the Providence Mountains State Recreation Area, about four hours east of Los Angeles, introduced me to a world I'd never experienced. And because this is California, the colorful subterranean wonderland of the area's Mitchell Caverns come with a story that's tailor-made for the movies.

Every so often I experience a genuine "oh my gosh" moment. In Africa, I rounded a bend and came face to face with a large male lion. In Wyoming, driving south from Yellowstone, I rounded a curve and saw the Tetons rising majestically from the valley floor. And, most recently, in Nevada, as I crested a hill on the drab road through the Muddy Mountains, I saw the Valley of Fire. Sculpted, chiseled and twisted red rock formations more dramatic than most others I have seen dominated the park's 35,000 acres.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) says she plans to introduce legislation today to establish two national monuments on roughly 1 million acres of Mojave Desert outback that is home to bighorn sheep and desert tortoises, extinct volcanoes, sand dunes and ancient petroglyphs. Its centerpiece, Mojave Trails National Monument, would prohibit development on 941,000 acres of federal land and former railroad company property along a 105-mile stretch of old Route 66, between Ludlow and Needles.

If Las Vegas is the rock star of the gambling world, energetic with plenty of edge, then Laughlin is the lounge singer -- thinning on top and slightly off-key. Still, that lounge act is entertaining in a curious sort of way and, best of all, there's no cover charge. Laughlin, Nev., which hugs the banks of the Colorado River about 30 miles north of Needles, Calif., boasts 11 hotel-casinos with more than 10,000 rooms. The town has been called "Vegas Lite" and "Vegas Junior."

THERE are some nifty pictures to be seen in them thar hills -- once, that is, you've risen at the crack of dawn, obtained security clearance, had your car searched, listened to a pep talk from the local police and driven deep into a weapons testing base. The pictures, or rather petroglyphs, are well worth the inconvenience.

In a case with ramifications for archeological treasures across the West, the Justice Department is asking the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider a ruling that freed two men convicted of stealing ancient petroglyphs in Nevada. "There is a good deal at stake here," said Sherry Hutt, a former Superior Court judge from Arizona who has written books on the subject and now heads a related program at the National Park Service.

Deeply etched spider webs. A bear paw with seven claws. And everywhere, bighorn sheep, thousands of them. Just a three-hour drive from the place now known as Los Angeles, in a 1,200-square-mile patch of the Eastern Sierra's Coso Mountains, ancient inhabitants meticulously carved more than 100,000 images onto lava rock walls, crags and boulders. Today, the Navy is just as relentless in bombarding the surrounding desert. High-powered lasers lash the hills. Missiles obliterate surplus Army trucks.

Pounding surf and buffeting winds slowly chip away the sandstone walls of a cave on San Nicolas Island, erasing the only rock art left by a tribe of mysterious ancient islanders. Many of the whales or fish icons chiseled into the stone are no longer visible. The black painted pictographs can barely be distinguished from the blue-green algae that cling to the crumbling surface. Archeologists want to protect the artwork from further deterioration at the remote site they call Cave of the Whales.

No matter how many times archeologist Russell Kaldenberg roams Renegade Canyon, its volcanic rock reveals new magic. Depending on the season or the slant of the sun, the dark stone will erupt with chalk-white images, carved over the past 16,000 years, that he hasn't seen before. There are bighorn sheep and long-tailed cougars scratched into the walls of the high desert corridor.

"We've got a problem up here!" Alarm colored the voice of wrangler Bryon Himelick, who was ahead on the trail. I clambered onto a shelf of sandstone to get a better view. Two llamas had slipped their guide ropes, walked off the trail and into a brown puddle. The 3-year-old named Howell was in quicksand up to his panniers. In seconds, Bryon and the two other guides shucked off their backpacks, raced to the llamas and gently pulled them back to solid ground.