Round Trip Distance: 0.3 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 3655 - 3696 feet
Cellphone: 0-3 bars
Time: 1 hr.
Trailhead: CA-136 mm 9.1
Fee: none
Attractions: petroglyphs
The Swansea Petroglyphs are located along CA-136 about 10.5 miles south of Lone Pine, California. The site includes scores of mostly very easy to see images that were created around the point of a hill which now overlooks an old quarry site.
To get there from Lone Pine drive south on US-395 for a mile and a half or so and turn left onto CA-136. Once on CA-136 continue for just over 9 miles and pull off the highway on your left near an old quarry site. There is plenty of room to park and turn around in the hard packed gravely area that serves as the unofficial trailhead. The petroglyphs are along the point of the hill above the quarry in the area that we encircled with red in this photo.
From the parking area find your way around and between the quarry and the highway and up the gentle slope to this outcrop. Once there petroglyphs can be found scattered about on almost all of the surfaces.
Some of the images like these might be old enough to have gotten a top layer of patina. Of course, it is only part of the rocks surface that has been darkened so who knows.
There are a couple of images that look like dragonflies. Not sure if that is what the one in the lower right is or not but that is what it brings to mind.
Shows up nicely whatever it is. To us it looks like the left side is a serpent.
An atlatl.
Interesting mirrored wavy lines.
Another atlatl.
This photo is just to give an idea of the way the images are scattered about on some of the boulders. It will be easier to see if you click on it and view the larger image.
On a small ledge just around the point of rocks there is what we would call a hunting panel with a few bighorn sheep and other images.
This is on one of the low lying rocks out in front of the rock point.
Just one more for the road.
There are more atlatls and interesting geometrical shapes that we haven't shown but many of them are in the following slideshow. There is something fun about looking around the Swansea site for petroglyphs. We heard that some images may have disappeared as the quarry grew in size but there wasn't any way for us to confirm that. What is there is well worth a visit. If you would like to see it for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.
