Shotgun Junction Petroglyphs

Rating: 
Round Trip Distance: 0.24 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 4472 - 4502 feet
Cellphone: 0-3 bars
Time: 30 mins.
Trailhead: Shotgun Junction
Fee: none
Attractions: petroglyphs

The Shotgun Junction Petroglyphs are on the Volcanic Tableland, 7 miles west of Bishop, California. The site includes several good panels of petroglyphs that were created upon basalt boulders and cliff faces.

To get there from Bishop follow the directions to the River View Petroglyphs but instead of turning off of the Casa Diablo Road for that site continue straight ahead for 1 more mile before taking the road to the left.

About a quarter mile from the Casa Diablo Road there is a junction of 2 roads with a sign that reads, among other things, 'No Parking Beyond this Point'. This is Shotgun Junction and the petroglyphs begin on the cliffs directly to the west or the road. The best that you can do here is find a wide enough place in the road where you can get off to the side enough to allow other vehicles to pass and park.

Some of the petroglyphs might be visible from the road if you have an idea of where to look. We were able to see the large panel on the left with binoculars.

The panel on the left sits up on a small bench. There may have been a small rock shelter here at one time.

There are a couple of vertically stacked box like, or segmented, images that are a little different from the other geometric shapes that we have seen so far.

Continuing along the ridge in the direction away from the junction there is a large boulder that sits out in front of the cliff that has a dense concentration of images.

Some of the images are ruined by bullet holes but we thought that at least one of the tall rectangular shapes had shamanistic or anthropomorphic aspects.

A section of cliff in the same area has another dozen or so interesting images.

Here a rectangular grid with dots in each cell sits next to a crossed circle that also has dots. The two shapes are connected with line segments.

This panel is 10 feet or so off the ground and easy to miss. Notice the stork like image with one bird foot. The other leg connects to a cluster of circles.

 Another hard to spot panel has a handful of zoomorphic images of different sizes that resemble deer.

It is our understanding that if you take the road to the left at Shotgun Junction there are more petroglyphs in different places along the ridge all the way to the edge of the mesa. We'll have to see if that is the case on our next trip. This trip was cut short due to the Chalk Bluff Road being closed. From here we went around to Rosetta Stone and the other sites in that area. Shotgun Junction is a little weird with the parking situation but it is well worth taking a little time to explore. If you would like to see it for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.