Painted Rock is located in the Old Woman Mountains Wilderness Area southwest of Needles, California. The site is very remote and appears to have both petroglyphs and pictographs.
There are a lot of roads on the map in the area and there is no way of telling for sure which ones to use just from looking at the map. The route that we have planned is to take I-40 Exit 120 and follow the Water Road for 23.3 miles. At that point we would turn right onto the Sunflower Spring Road or BLM WA420 and drive another 4.2 miles where we would turn left for 1.5 miles to the trailhead. At that point we would begin exploring around Painted Rock and Painted Rock Spring looking for rock art.
Entering 34.51853, -115.11546 into your driving app gives the option of several routes that are a bit different. It might be worth doing that and then letting it autocorrect as you go along.
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| Closeup of Painted Rock and Spring |
Included with this post is the GPS file and map that we plan to use for our first visit. If you don't want to wait for us to get around to it feel free to try the GPS file and map for yourself. With no guarantee, of course, but they most often prove valuable for us.
Download GPS planning file:
