Grimes Point (Churchill County, Nevada)

With my leg still a little sore from overdoing it a bit last weekend, I've spent the week doing some very short hikes and avoiding any strain on it. With the weekend here, I decided to keep at this pace and give my leg another few days without any major stress. With that said, I have been wanting to return to a well known petroglyph site about an hour from Reno called Grimes Point.

 

As the glaciers receded at the end of the last ice age, they left a large lake in the northwestern corner of Nevada, remnants of which can be seen in today's Pyramid and Walker Lakes. The ancient Native Americans hunted and foraged around the shores of this ever-shrinking lake. Between eight and two thousand years ago, they carved and scratched meaningful symbols into the rocks around Grimes Point, which would have been a peninsula jutting into the lake. In addition, they utilized many of the rock overhangs and caves in the nearby hills as shelter and food caches. The largest and most archaeological significant of these caves is known as Hidden Cave and has been excavated several times in the last century, revealing many details about the lives of these ancient peoples. This cave is left under lock and key, but as luck would have it, the Churchill County Museum offers guided tours on the second and forth Saturday of each month.

 

While I had originally, only been concerned with the petroglyphs at Grimes Point, I thought it might be worthwhile to visit the cave since I happened to be going on the day of the guided tour. After following a caravan to the cave trail parking lot, we hiked up the desert hillsides and around what was once the shore of the ancient lake until we reached the sealed entrance to the cave. That's when the whole affair went a little sour. After spending a good 20 minutes attempting to unlock the door, the guide gave up. Apparently, the desert sands had worked their way into the lock and mixed with oil sprayed into the lock by previous guides to seize it to a state of being unable to turn. I can't blame the tour guide. He gave it his all, but it just wasn't meant to be. He called the museum for guidance, but I decided to say my farewells and head back to the petroglyphs, where were the reason I had come in the first place.

 

Walking the short trail in and amongst the rock art, it's fairly easy to imagine ancient hunters laying wait among the ancient foliage for a deer or big horn to come to the shoreline for a water break. Perhaps the scratching on the rock, were just boredom while they awaited prey. There doesn't seem to be much of a pattern to the way the glyphs are arranged and it is extremely easy to miss them here. This is partly because they might appear any side of given rock and partly due to the faded nature of them on dark stone, which is made especially hard to see when the sun glares off just right.
 

After a short time walking in and around the area, I make my way back to where I had left the jeep. It's getting warm out and I need to get home, but it was a fun trip even without being able to enter the cave.