Round Trip Distance: 3 miles
Difficulty: Moderate
Elevation: 4067 - 4170 feet
Cellphone: 0-3 bars
Time: 3 hrs. 30 mins.
Trailhead: 35.33320, -115.71322
Fee: none
Attractions: petroglyphs
The Cow Cove Petroglyphs are located southeast of Baker, California in the Mojave Wilderness Area of the Mojave National Preserve. Found at the site are two side by side areas of petroglyphs on a boulder strewn hillside that are all in excellent condition.
For turn-by-turn directions to the unmarked trailhead enter 35.33320, -115.71322 into your driving app. If your driving app tries to route you to Exit 265 either drag the route to Exit 272 or drive past Exit 265 and let it reroute itself. Via Exit 265 is a horrible route to follow. From I-15 Exit 272 head south on the Cima Road for just over a quarter of a mile and turn right onto the Cow Cove Road (aka Aiken Mine Road). At 5.8 miles stay right and at 8 miles arrive at the unmarked trailhead that is on the edge of the Mojave Wilderness Area.
From the trailhead follow the old 4WD road for about 1.5 miles.
After the first mile the road begins fading away until the route becomes a cobweb of different faint trails. All you have to do to find your way is to head toward the back of the cove to where both areas of petroglyphs are marked by Respect the Past signs.
Once there petroglyphs can be seen on scores of boulders both high and low upon the side of the hill.
The images are almost 100 percent geometrical designs.
For the most part all of the images show up very well.
Towards the west end of the boulder pile you will want to start scrambling up the hill.
This is one of the large panels that is all the way up on the west rim.
This next series of photos are from the east site. There aren't quite as many images there but they are still excellent.
At the east site the petroglyphs also go all the way up to the rim. We were succumbing to petroglyph fatigue by that time so we didn't scramble up there to take closeup photos.
Cow Cove has an amazing collection of petroglyphs that are all still in almost pristine condition. On our visit the temperature was in the 70's and the hike was pleasant. Climbing up to the rim probably adds another half mile or so to the overall round trip distance if that is a concern. We only included a fraction of the petroglyphs in this post that we photographed. More can be seen in the following slideshow but even that has been edited for length.
If you would like to see Cow Cove for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.
