Round Trip Distance: 1.6 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 2774 - 2930 feet
Cellphone: 0 bars
Time: 2 hrs.
Trailhead: Fort Piute
US-95 turnoff: 35.10010, -114.82899
Fee: none
Attractions: petroglyphs
The Piute Spring Petroglyphs are located near Fort Piute in the Mojave National Preserve near Needles, California. Found at the site are more than a score of boulders along the trail that have petroglyphs on them. On the point of a cliff overlooking Piute Creek there are a few more boulders with petroglyphs, a couple of rock circles that would have been habitation sites, and at least one grinding slick.
You can enter Fort Piute into your driving app for turn-by-turn directions but Google Maps on Android doesn't know about the BLM NN035 road so it routes you via the Goffs Road which is an out of the way route. Our Toyota driving app does know about BLM NN035. The GPS coordinates for that turnoff are 35.10010, -114.82899. BLM NN035 has a lot of soft sand and requires a high clearance 4WD but that is required for the entire route to Fort Piute other than the short 1.5 mile stretch of BLM NN101. It's a bit of a pain getting there but you get to explore 3 different sites for the effort.
Once you make it to the trailhead follow the old 4WD road west past the ruins.
Continue following the road until you come to three kiosks. Ignore the trail that drops down into the creek bed and continue straight past the signs.
Before you reach the end of the road search out the beginning of the trail that departs on the right. Finding it is the first crux of the hike.
Once you get on the correct trail you will find a well constructed route that is bordered for the most part with rocks and timbers.
As you hike along there will be petroglyphs visible in places on the hillside above the trail. We marked a couple of them on the map and created waypoints in the GPX file for them but you will find that there are a lot more than the ones that we marked.
There are about a dozen of these small boulders with petroglyphs on them in the first quarter mile of the trail. That's not counting rocks with inscriptions that we probably left by the Calvary or other pioneers.
The next crux of the hike comes up around the 0.6 mile point where the Piute Canyon loop begins. The left side of the loop angles down the hill toward the creek and leads to the rest of the petroglyphs. The right side continues straight ahead and stays well above the creek. The trail is really overgrown and hard to follow in places but once you get on it you will see that it is also lined with rocks in places and has a few posts. What you are aiming for is a point of cliff a little upstream from the confluence of the two washes. The petroglyphs are all along the right side of the wash on the left beginning at the confluence and continuing for another 600 feet.
Once you cross the wash you will be able to pick up the trail again.
These were a few of the more interesting boulders. There are more than 20 all together just in this area.
This one looks like a frowny face with long streaming hair.
On the point that overlooks the wash there are a couple of rock circles, a grinding slick, and a few more petroglyphs. Inside of the rock circles would have been a wikiup, wigwam, or similar brush shelter.
