Round Trip Distance: 250 feet
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 4600 - 4605 feet
Cellphone: 0-3 bars
Time: 30 mins.
Trailhead: Walker Creek Road
Fee: none
Attractions: rock art, pictographs
The Walker Creek Boulder is located about 3.5 miles west of Grant, California. Multiple pictographs can be found painted on one side of the boulder.
The California Highway Department is in the process of constructing a 4-lane extension of US-395 that will bypass Grant and Olancha so in the near future the directions to the Walker Creek Boulder will probably undergo some changes. At present you can drive either 1.6 miles south from Olancha or 0.4 miles north from Grant and turn west onto the unpaved Walker Creek Road.
Just under a half mile after turning off of US-395 the road crosses a narrow span over the Los Angeles Aqueduct. This crossing was just wide enough for our full sized Toyota Tundra.
Just under the 1 mile point the Walker Creek Road crosses the new 4-lane section of US-395 which at the time of our visit was still under construction. As the road progresses it becomes more primitive. This is what the more primitive stretch of the road looks like. For the most part it is hard packed but it gets softer once you get out of the main track.
Near the 1.6 mile point after crossing the new US-395 there is a cluster of boulders on the right hand side of the road. Also at this point there is a brown mylar marker that reads '19S01' and a square post which currently has no placard.
By walking toward the cluster of larger boulders that are about 100 feet or so from the road you will be able to discover the pictographs on one of the boulders on the side that faces away from the road.
The images on the left side of the boulder are fainter but some are still discernible.
As far as the message they were meant to convey, that is more of a mystery.
Here a faint wavy line can be seen that has a row of tick-marks below it.
On the right hand side of the boulder the image show up a little better.
It would be interesting to know what the images that look like balloons with strings attached represent.
