Turkey Farm Petroglyphs

Rating: 
Round Trip Distance: 1 mile
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 2590 - 2620 feet
Cellphone: 0-3 bars
Time: 1 hrs. 30 mins.
Trailhead: 35.11352, -114.97105
Fee: none
Attractions: petroglyphs

The Turkey Farm Petroglyphs are located near Fort Piute in the Mojave National Preserve near Needles, California. About 3/4 of a mile from the fort is a place where someone tried raising turkeys at one time. Just downstream from the farm petroglyphs can be found on many of the basalt in a half mile square area.

To get to the trailhead turn off of US 95 onto BLM NN035 and head west. The unmarked turnoff is 26 miles south of Searchlight, NV and 17.2 miles north of Interstate 40. The GPS coordinates for the turnoff are 35.10010, -114.82899. BLM NN035 has a lot of soft sand and requires a high clearance 4WD but that is also required for the entire route to the Turkey Farm and Fort Piute other than the short 1.5 mile stretch of BLM NN101 that runs along the power lines. After turning off of US 95 head west for 7.25 miles and then turn right onto the powerline road. Continue north for another 1.5 miles and turn left. From here the road gets pretty rocky. It is just over 1.1 miles from the powerline road to where an old 4WD route connects on the left. This large area with several primitive campsites is the trailhead for the Turkey Farm Petroglyphs.

Just over 100 yards from the trailhead the old road dips down into a wash. Some good petroglyphs can be found on some of the boulders on the left in the area where we made some red circles. More can be found for another hundred yards or so past those. Even more can be found on the flats before you drop down into the wash on both sides of the trail and even in a large area across the wash.

This is one of the first petroglyphs on the left side of the wash. The next series are all in the same area.

The rest are a few of those that are on the west side of the road.

There are a lot more petroglyphs that still show up pretty well that are in the slideshow. You could probably find petroglyphs on both sides of Piute Creek all the way from this site up to Fort Piute. In fact we are pretty sure that that is the case. There is a trail that runs along the north side of the wash from Fort Piute to the actual abandoned Turkey Farm. There are probably petroglyphs all along that trail.

If you would like to see the Turkey Farm Petroglyphs for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.