Bullseye Rock and Mad Women Spring

BEYOND THE LAST DAY

On my last hike of the year I went to the Bullseye Rock area in the Indian Canyons. I wanted to go beyond there to Bullseye Flat and Mad Women Spring but the canyons closed early on December 31 and I really didn't feel comfortable going up into that rugged area alone. I'm old. Years of domestic bliss has not softened my adventurous spirit but my body is another story. Having someone along would be good in case I tripped over my cane.

So I went back with Florian, a guy I met in an online forum for Mount San Jacinto, with the goal of making it all the way to Mad Women Spring and the rock cabin I visited over 17 years ago.

The trip report on my first visit up to Bullseye Rock can be found here.

Bullseye Rock is a huge monolith and there are no easy ways around it. It is not that steep so it's possible to find a place to just go up the face.

But once you're past it, the traveling doesn't' get much easier. There's a large boulder field that has to be navigated through.

A couple of deer run through Bullseye Flat but I only got a picture of one.

All along this hike there is a wealth of Indian artifacts and dwellings. This rock shelter is one of the most interesting I've found.

There are a number of bedrock mortars here.

This one is quite deep.

There are also cupules which are generally more for ceremonial use than food preparation.

Another large bedrock mortar.

Under this overhang could have been a sleeping area. Just move a few rocks and bedtime.

Just around the corner is the kitchen area with lots of pitch from fires on the roof. I don't know how those ghosts appeared in this photo because I didn't see them and the picture before and after this one are clear. My wife thinks the image on the right looks like a lady holding a child.

This is the picture I took almost immediately following the ghost picture. There are no ghosts in this one so I guess they only hang out in the kitchen.

After leaving the rock shelter and the ghosts behind, we tromp up a steep and rocky hillside until we come to the rock house at Mad Women Spring.

A closer look at the backside of the cabin.

The inside of the cabin is a bit dusty but there are some tools left behind and it's obvious that someone's been up here since my last visit. They put a new roof on the thing.

There are also many provisions although it doesn't appear that any are particularly new.

Here's another view of the rock house with its shiny "new" roof. From reading the log book the roof is about ten years old but it still looks great.

The spring is just a drip but it's enough to ensure the water tub is full and clear. The tub is also "new". It may only be a couple of years old. Not many hikers come up here. The most recent entry in the log book is about two years old and several parties came in by helicopter.

I have plenty of water left in my water bottle but if I didn't there's an ample supply here.

Florian makes his way down Bullseye Rock as we head back after a successful adventure.

It sure will be nice to get back on flat ground.

This is a very interesting little place in the world and I hope to get back soon. Next time I'm going to wear long pants because my legs look like they were in a vat of cats. I can only imagine what else might be left to be discovered in this mysterious and seldom visited section of the San Jacinto Mountains.

Newspaper Article about Me

There was a newspaper article in the Desert Sun about me today.

Just in case you missed it, here's the link:

Desert Sun article.

Favorite Pictures of Trees and Flowers

I took thousands of pictures while hiking this past year and some even turned out OK. Digital photography is a wonderful thing because it used to be that you'd have to develop your film to discover that only 2 of the 36 pictures you took were any good. Now, you can snap away freely and if you don't like the pictures, just hit DELETE and you're done.

A professional photographer I am not. All of my pictures were taken with your basic point and shoot camera with a minimum of fussing with the controls. I saw something I liked, pointed the camera and snapped. The main camera was a Canon S3IS. I like this camera because it has a 12X optical zoom but it broke on me twice, unfortunately. The first time I sent it to Canon for repair and now it's just sitting waiting to go back again. The other camera I used was a Canon PowerShot A540, a real basic camera. It worked OK but I really missed the extra zoom, especially when I came upon Bighorn Sheep, which I did a few times. I didn't do any real photo processing. I just uploaded them to iPhoto on my Mac and that was that. A couple of them I changed to B&W just for fun and a few I enhanced the color if they were too dark but basically they are as I shot them.

Anyway, here are a few of my favorites. Click on them to enlarge and if you'd to download one for your personal use, right click and save it to either your photo application or your desktop.

Trees don't last to long in the desert without a constant source of water. That's why there are so few of them. I took a number of pictures of dead trees and, for some reason, they tend to look better in black and white. At least, to me they do.

This bent over palm is near my home in La Quinta and is near where a water tank used to be. They put a road up to the location and planted trees around it but once the water system was upgraded, and the tank no longer used, all the trees died.

The palm in the Indian Canyons is still living despite its bent over position. I always call it the Rainbow Palm and people who go there seem to know what I'm talking about. I don't know if they have a name for it but to me it will always be the Rainbow Palm.

We did not have a great year in the desert for wildflowers but we did have enough rain so that we got a couple weeks of decent displays. I found the best place for flowers this spring was in South Palm Desert near the Visitors Center for the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa National Monument.

There were good displays of Desert Chicory.

The Notch Leaf Phacelia were particularly abundant and I discovered that they can irritate your legs if you brush up against them.

These little Windmill flowers were also all around. They were probably the most delicate little flower I saw this year.

The area off the Art Smith Trail was also pretty good for flowers, especially Cacti. There were a couple of days where the whole trail was lined with flowers although it didn't last for very long.

Cholla, Red Barrel and Brittlebush in the late afternoon light near the Schey Trail.

Red Barrel Cactus flowers in bloom.

The Boo Hoff Trail in La Quinta was also an area where I came across a fair amount of flowers. These pictures were taken over a couple week period in February on different sections of the trail.

The green bloom of the Silver Cholla.

Ghost Flowers are pretty common along Devil Canyon at the southern end of the Boo Hoff.

The Desert Five Spot just might be the prettiest little flower that blooms in the desert. This one was sort of a late bloomer and I saw it about two months after everything else had died.

While not really a picture of flowers I liked this photo so much I decided to include it here. I also might include it in the upcoming section about my favorite animal shots, too.

I also got a few shots in the mountains nearby but really didn't get any good floral shots in the high mountains. I think I may have just been there at the wrong time.

This one was taken on the trail on the way down from Cahuilla Mountain. It was part of a long plant that grew in a meadow up there. I have no idea what it is.

I was just about the take a picture of this Silver Cholla bloom at the start of my hike to Sugarloaf Mountain when a little milkweed bug decided to hop in my picture. He made a nice contrast to the color of the flower so I decided not to shoo him away.

People who've never been to the desert or who don't look to closely have no idea what incredible beauty exists in this stark and often barren landscape. But with just a little rain the desert turns into a carpet of wildflowers and lush life. Here's hoping for some good winter storms and more flowers this spring. I'm ready to point and click. How about you?

Palm Canyon Trading Post to Bullseye Rock

DAY THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY FIVE

Bullseye Rock is a place in the Indian Canyons that holds an interesting place in the history of the Cahuilla Indians. It was known as the You coo hal ya me?, The place of many brains. The story goes that the Indians of Palm Springs had a dispute with the Indians of Seven Palms and a raiding party was formed. The Palm Springs warriors slaughtered their foes and carried their heads back in nets to Bullseye Rock. Here, their heads were rolled down the rock and dashed to bits. It is easy to see how this could have been done. There's a little trough running down the face of Bullseye Rock and a head would probably roll down it quite nicely.

Starting at the Trading Post, the trail to Bullseye Rock has a sign now. Sort of. Bullseye Rock is not listed on any sign but it is in the vicinity of Indian Potrero, an old village site.

You go through the Palm Canyon Oasis and its over 3000 palms including the Rainbow Palm.

The trail goes straight through the palms and then ascends up out of the canyon and onto the ridge.

From there, the hike goes overland and offers great views of the San Jacinto Mountains to the west and Santa Rosa Mountain (seen here in the background) to the south.

After about a mile, you come to another sign near Dry Wash. Off to the right there are some non descript looking rocks that are very significant in the history of the Cahuilla people.

This area of rocks was basically the maternity ward for the Indians of this region. The rocks in the foreground that are pock marked are covered with cupules. These little petroglyphs are placed here to represent and significant event, probably a birth or a pregnancy.

There are dozens of them.

Here's a closer look.

After leaving the birthing rocks, I continue on to Indian Potrero. Potrero is a Spanish word meaning meadow or pasture. It is easy to see why this area got its name. This nice little flat is littered with mesquite bushes, a major food source for the Indians.

It doesn't take much looking around before I find a bedrock mortar. This one is filled with water and I place my pole basket near it so you can get an idea of its size.

A little more searching around brings me to this rock shelter. There is a significant amount of pitch on the top of this shelter so it's obvious it was used for a long time.

There are two large bedrock mortars here and a mano. A smaller mortar is just out of view.

A couple more bedrock mortars are nearby.

On the way to Bullseye Rock, I find a couple small pottery sherds.

This is Bullseye Rock. If you enlarge the picture and look close you can see the groove that a head would roll nicely down. Beyond the rock is Bullseye Flat and beyond that, Mad Women Spring. I won't be going there today but will save that for another trip. The Canyons are closing early today and I got a late start. Bullseye Flat has more Indian areas of significance and there's an old line shack with provisions at Mad Women Spring. They'll have to wait for another day, another year. I'd love to do a backpack trip here and do some real exploring.

The Cahuilla had names for all kinds of places, streams, rocks, geologic features. I wonder what they would have called this leaning rock?

On my way back I find more pot sherds without really even looking for them.

There are also some more areas where rocks were used as a kitchen.

It has been quite a hike and quite a year. I plan on doing an overview of my favorite hikes and pictures of the year in the coming days.

It has been an incredible experience to hike every day this year. I have discovered places I would have never known existed and now have leads on more places to explore in the future. While I will not be hiking every day in the coming years, I will not be giving up blogging or hiking. What I intend to do is concentrate more on quality instead of quantity. I also want to add video and other multimedia components. Keep coming back and if you have a favorite hike or picture, post a comment or send me an email.

Thanks for your love and support. Have a great 2010.

Hal