Round Trip Distance: 0.5 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 3500 - 3559 feet
Cellphone: 0-3 bars
Time: 45 mins.
Trailhead: 35.05332, -115.14770
Turnoff: 35.05152, -115.16370
Fee: none
Attractions: pictographs, rock shelter
The Vontrigger Spring Pictographs are located in the Mojave National Preserve northwest of Needles, California. The site includes some faint red pictographs, a scenic cave, and a rock shelter that are all within 1,000 feet of the trailhead.
For turn-by-turn directions to the turnoff enter 35.05152, -115.16370 into your driving app. The turnoff is off of the Lanfair Road. Coming from the direction of Needles, 48 miles away, the Lanfair Road is paved except the last 7 miles which is a wide gravel road. Coming from the north the Lanfair Road is good from the Cedar Canyon Road south but north of there the Lanfair Road is a hazardous route due to some wash outs that if you were to hit at any speed would wreck your vehicle. In other words, if you are coming across on the Cedar Canyon Road then fine but if you are coming directly from I-15 the better route would be to drive down US-95 to the Goffs Road and come up from there. It would be both safer and faster.
After turning off of the Lanfair Road follow the 4WD road for 1.13 miles and turn left. At this point the 4WD road gets slightly more uneven but not too bad. After just over a half mile this road dead ends at a spring. From there it is less than 300 feet to the pictographs.
The surest way of finding the pictographs is probably to hike into the narrow canyon until you come to these neat looking caves.
At that point turn around and look back at the cliff that you just walked past and you should be able to spot the pictographs. From this distance there appear to be several large anthropomorphic figures that look a little out of place for this area. They look to me like something that you might find in Southern Utah.
A zoom lens will keep you from needing to climb up on the slick rock below the images to take photos.
The most distinct images are probably this red sun and a few other plain circles.
Mostly undeterminable shapes.
There are several of these smaller images that have an anthro aspect to them.
Another couple hundred feet up the wash there is a rock shelter that is directly across from the now walled up well of Vontrigger Spring.
The blackened soot roof shows the signs of many fires. This rock shelter was probably repurposed by the miners that worked in the area. There are a few rusty cans littering the midden area. According to our maps the land north and west of Vontrigger Spring is private property so this is where we turned around.
The Vontrigger Spring area is interesting even if the pictographs aren't the greatest in the world. If you would like to see it for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.
