Discovering Tipai - Kumeyaay Rock Art in Baja California from La Rumorosa to beyond the El Topo Ranch in the Sierra de Juarez Mountains. Kumeyaay Rock Art. Southern California Rock Art. San Diego Rock Art.

Last weekend, friend, fisherman and guide of Baja California, Jose Morales planned a wonderful trip for us at the beautiful El Topo Ranch [ranchoeltoposierradejuarez@hotmail.com].   They are also on Facebook with some wonderful photographs of people having fun at the rancho: 

https://www.facebook.com/RanchoElTopoSierraDeJuarez

This horse and cattle ranch is about 25 miles south of La Rumorosa [the town] in the Sierra de Juarez Mountains.  You follow one 2WD road south from the western end of La Rumorosa that heads down to Laguna Hanson.  El Topo is about 10 miles before Laguna Hanson, and about 10 miles Northwest [as the crow flies] of Canyon de Guadalupe. There are regular signs along the road to El Topo Ranch.  After about  22 miles on the road to Laguna Hanson, there will be a large sign and a turn off to the west for El Topo Rancho.  This road is also 2WD, however, both roads might be impossible to drive during or just after a rain storm as they are dirt and clay, not gravel.

The purpose of this trip was to view some new rock art sites that Jose had located.  All of the sites were several miles from the Rancho, but El Topo was a good center point so that everyone could do what was of interest to them.  El Topo has at least 20 horses and they are beautiful animals that love to get out on the trail.  Ricardo loves to ride and even his grandson who looks like about 8 years old is a good wrangler.  Everyone on the ranch could not be more friendly.  When not laughing, the mood is the most pleasing serenity with a warm breeze blowing through the Pine trees.

This trip included many rock art fanatics from around the U.S.  My camping neighbor was the innovative rock art author, Dennis Slifer from New Mexico via Virgina.  We had a great time on the back roads of Baja.  We also had along John Pitts and Siobhan Hancock, Ned and Edna Clem all from New Mexico, Brian Swanson from somewhere in the Southwest,  Jose Morales and the incomparable trekker, Christy Tweedy and yours truly.  My poor Donna was stranded at home working on a Webinar.  Jose and Christy located the Tipai - Kumeyaay pictographs before they invited us down, so we were able to spend more time enjoying the area.



Our Hosts at the El Topo Ranch in the Sierra de Juarez Mountains of Baja California - Don Ricardo and his wife, Veronica.  I am smiling as I just had some of Veronica's Huevos Rancheros for breakfast!

New Site discovered by Jose in a large tunnel like rock shelter about 15-20 miles south of La Rumorosa.

New Site discovered by John about 20 miles from La Rumorosa near the end of a very long 4WD road.  The trees are manzanita that are very, very healthy with bright red wood.

 

Revisiting a rock shelter south of La Rumorosa - Note the middle photo with the hand print and a possible figure with "feathers" where his arms might be.  There is a well known Shaman association with birds and flight.

 

The two photographs above and below this line contain elements that are each only a few inches across and are all on a wall of a small rock shelter.  The entire panel is less than 2 x 2 feet.  The bisected circle and a few red dots are about all you can see with your unaided eye.  While small in size, I think this panel is amazingly artistic in quality.

 More of the new panel discovered by Jose after six previous visits looking for new art in this area south of La Rumorosa. The red body "sheep" is very unusual as is the other figure.  All of the figures from this shelter and most of the other ones have been processed with Dstretch [acknowledgment to Jon Harman] to amplify the colors of black and red.

See you on the long desert trail!
Don Liponi - Copyright all photographs 2015.

San Diego - Riverside Rock Art in Luiseno-Cahuilla Territory, Southern California. Neighbors of the Kumeyaay. Luiseno or Cahuilla Rock Art. Puberty Related Rock Art. Southern California Rock Art.

My friends, Joel and Rick, told me about this site and they warned me that it was a difficult and potentially dangerous hike involving steep drop-offs and a climb out, but that the rock art was extraordinary.  Well, they were correct on both accounts. The only difficulty I didn't have to overcome was Diamondback Rattlesnakes, thanks to the cold temperatures at night.  Scorpions, ticks, spiders, or centipedes may have been around the dark and dank shelters or the vegetation choked creek bed, but I did not have any interactions with them.  I did walk with some hesitancy to the sites thinking about all of these creatures!  One of the shelters is about 7 feet up a granite wall and is about 2 feet tall in most places.  The light is too low to shoot without flash.  Even a 10mm lens hardly did the rock art justice as the focal plane, at times, was about a foot.   Another feature that is unusual to me is that the paintings are on dark rock and to make them visible, unfortunately, requires a lot of computer work.  A prime example is the second pair of photos below - the one on the left is "as is" and the one on the right is DS.  Even with Photoshop and Dstretch [thank you to Jon Harman], I could barely pull out the figure.  As you can see, most of the rest of the rock art is made up of dots, zig-zags and intertwining or braided lines in white and red.  The blue is a DS artifact. 

Admittedly, I know very little about this area.  The Luiseno were known to have rock art paintings associated with young women puberty rites and these paintings below have elements that are related to such rites of passage.  It is difficult to ascribe this rock art to either the Luiseno or the Cahuilla.

Click on a photograph to enlarge it.  Photos are copyright by Don Liponi 2015.  See you on the trail!

Lots of Dots, Zig Zags and Braids.  The rock art itself is red, but both photos are DStretched.

Pre and Post DStretch - I am not sure if the right photograph actually shows an anthropomorph or not?

The blue elements are actually red - this is a Dstretch rendition.

Above are some Abstract elements - DS is used to bring out the faded red designs.

 

 

A DS version of this art, although the paint is a faded Red

 

The lower photographs are multicolored Braiding designs on the ceiling of a Rock Shelter.