Tipai-Kumeyaay Rock Art Site - A Little Known Baja, California Site Along the Road to Mexicali, East of La Rumorosa.



As I had done many times before, I was driving down the long grade of Quota Road 2 in Baja California.   This time my friend finally convinced me to stop and look.  There are many reasons not to stop:  It is a short steep climb;  There is graffiti visible on the rocks, though most of it is not on the pictographs;  Once you start driving down the grade, there is no turning back towards the direction of Tecate for many miles;  You must pass through two military check points as part of the drive.  Beyond these usual reasons not to stop, today it was getting dark - we would have to use flash and we couldn't see what we shooting at.  Finally, there was no time to preview the area using D stretch to find pictographs.   If we did this we would be climbing down the boulders in the dark.  While struggling up the trail I though of one more reason: there probably wasn't anything good up there anyway. 

 

Big thanks to hiking partner and fellow SDRAA member Rick Colman, because he made me go up the ravine anyway.  Now that I have recovered I am so glad that I went.  Here are a few images of the well defined anthropomorphs and some other unusual designs amidst perhaps one hundred morteros and basins.  Even today the area is abundant in Mesquite trees.  Many of the overhangs are rich in soot.  The yellow "flying" man or shaman shown below was barely visible under a thick layer of soot and located within a few feet of the highly mortared rock, also shown below.  While the point of this trip had been to visit another area, this site turned out to be the jewel of the trip. 

 

Rather than make up excuses not to do this hike, we are now anxious to return in the daylight and see all that we were bound to have missed.  If you are looking for opportunities to expand your interest in rock art, consider joining the San Diego Rock Art Association.  Our meetings, service opportunities, field trips and networking will help you.  Please see our link on the first page of this Blog. 

 

All photographs are copyright Don Liponi, 2014.  Click on photo to enlarge or to watch as slide show.  Dstretch courtesy of Jon Harman.

 

See you on the trail!