Footprints have faded, but spirit remains at Indian Hill

As we picked up pieces of broken pottery left behind by thepeople who lived in the Anza-Borrego Desert several centuries ago,our scout leader kept looking over his shoulder.

Someone asked what he was doing.

“It sounds crazy, but I keep seeing something out of the cornerof my eye that looks like an Indian watching us,” he said.


We had been camping in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and suchtalk simply added excitement to a group of Boy Scouts looking forartifacts in a sandy wash near Dos Cabezas.

A decade later, hiking with a college buddy in Carrizo Gorge, wefound a stone tool used by the ancients to straighten sticks to beused as arrows.

As we hiked out, several times he quickly glanced over hisshoulder, and commented that he felt there was someone watchingus.

A few months ago, a third friend spent the night camped in theembrace of huge desert boulders that had once been shelters for theinhabitants of this arid corner of California’s largest state park.Nearly 5,000 years ago, primitive people sought shelter in thesecaves of convenience, and left behind soot stains from a thousandfires, and cryptic drawings on the granite walls.

Sometime during the still hours before dawn, my friend heard thedistant tinkling of what sounded like muted bells. The next morninghe noticed fresh tracks of a barefoot human traveler, on top of thetracks he made the day before.

Whether or not you believe in spirits, there has been much leftbehind by the native people who spent winters hunting and gatheringin the arid deserts of Southern California. Cave-like grottos knownas rock shelters can be found in dozens of locations withinAnza-Borrego’s 600,000 acres. Some contain the primitive work ofunknown artists who left the protected rock walls covered with thedrawings of stick figures, sun or star symbols, mountain ranges, orcrude depictions of astronomical subjects. The real meanings havebeen lost in time and are subject to broad speculation.

Some anthropologists who have studied the pictographs believethey are associated with ceremonial puberty rights. Rock carvingsknown as yonis, that symbolize fertility, birth and the glory ofwomanhood were etched into the granite boulders by ancient hands.Some locations, known as solstice sites were gathering spots insummer and winter where the native people celebrated the seasons asdawn sunlight made predictable showings through precisely alignedrocks.

The rock drawings, known as pictographs are primitive art formsfound in more than 50 locations throughout Anza-Borrego, butperhaps the greatest concentration of this evidence of earlyinhabitants is found in the Indian Hill and Piedras Grandes areasin the extreme southern parts of the park. In a few locations youcan also find petroglyphs, which are figures carved into therocks.


A maze of four-wheel drive and SUV dirt roads lead visitors tothe Dos Cabezas area to primitive campsites, scenic areas,trailheads and seasonal wildflower viewing fields. Go equipped withat least a park map that can be obtained from the visitor center inBorrego Springs. Even better is the popular guidebook, “TheAnza-Borrego Desert Region,” by Lowell and Diana Lindsay.

Primitive campsites at Dos Cabezas Spring and Hayden Spring arepopular with scout groups, but there are hundreds of isolated andprivate camp locations in many of the side canyons and fingerwashes.

The easiest route into the Dos Cabezas area is a dirt road tothe south from Route S-2, just east of the San Diego-ImperialCounty Line and slightly less than 3 miles west of the ImperialCounty community of Ocotillo. A slightly more difficult route, butone also not requiring four-wheel drive is available another 4miles to the west, just west of the county line. Following theseroads south will take you into the areas where anthropologistsestimate as many as 10,000 Indians once lived.

Park managers are reluctant to publicize the exact locations ofthe pictograph sites, because of fear that unthinking vandals willdestroy the delicate images. Some sites have been lost in thisway.


One site that is marked and available to hikers is located inLittle Blair Valley. At road’s end, a short, easy trail takesvisitors through scenic boulder-strewn mountains to a shelteredvalley where faded pictographs, painted in rusty reds are stillvisible on the rock faces.

Spending a day exploring the hills around Dos Cabezas, or a weekcamped in the beautiful wild cactus gardens of the area, can allowvisitors an opportunity to walk the ancient trails used by theearly Indian inhabitants of the area.

Little has changed here in centuries, and the evidence of theearly Kumeyaay Indians can be found easily by those willing to hikeinto the roadless canyons or explore the unbroken cactus flats thatspill away from the boulder-strewn mountains.

Broken pieces of the crude clay pottery are scattered across thedesert landscape in many places. The Indians formed clay intocontainers known as ollas, and used for carrying water, storingfood or holding the cremated remains of their deceased.


Smooth, rounded holes known as morteros, where Indian womenground roots, acorns and seeds into a course flour meal for food,dot many of the flat boulders in the area. You can sit on thesesame rocks used by generations of nomadic travelers and allow yourmind to visualize the scene of a distant time. A thousand yearsago, several women, chatting as they worked to grind the seeds ofagave plants, may have occupied this same spot. Children played inthe sand while the stronger men of the band were out hunting forbighorn sheep or uprooting agave plants that were used for food andfiber. The natural resources of the arid desert provided food,clothing, tools, baskets, shelter and medicine.

Both men and women had long hair and the men wore no clothing ora woven belt to hold hunting tools. The women wore skirts made ofpounded strips of willow bark.

According to literature, the Indians were mostly barefoot, buton occasion wore sandals crafted from the course fiber of agaveleaves when traveling in rocky or thorny terrain. In cold weather,both men and women wore robes made from the fur of rabbits.

While the footprints of the ancients have faded from theshifting desert sands, their spirit remains behind. Sitting quietlyin a rock shelter, looking out at a scene they viewed centuriesago, or feeling the maker’s finger marks in a piece of brokenpottery seem to give you some connection with the past. A quietmoment of reflection in these remote places lets one realize howamazing life was for the Indians who called this area home.


Preservation of this cultural history is just one more virtue ofAnza-Borrego Desert State Park.