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| Directions: From the Stratosphere Casino head northeast on Las Vegas Blvd about 3 miles and turn right onto I-515/US-93/US-95 south towards Boulder City. Follow US-93/95 for 17 miles and then merge right onto US-95 South (Veterans Memorial Hwy) toward Searchlight/ Laughlin/Needles and travel for 55.5 miles. Turn left onto NV-163 (Laughlin Hwy) east. Drive.About 8 miles from the US-95 turnoff you will see a Laughlin sign in the desert off to your right. Just beyond this there is a fairly open area where a lot of people go four wheeling. Traveling about two miles beyond this area the road runs straight downhill. At the bottom of this stretch, SLOW DOWN (Fig. 02). Just before the guard rails where the road makes a sharp left turn, there is an unmarked exit to the right that turns into a dirt 4WD road (Fig. 01). There is also a white cross just in front of the guard rail. |
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Description: Hiko Springs is located a short distance off of Hwy 163 (Fig. 02) not far from the Grapevine Canyon site and the city of Laughlin, Nevada. The amazing thing is that there is very little information to be found about this site on the Internet; especially considering the number of Petroglyphs that can be found here. Unless you have a 4WD vehicle, I would advise parking just off the highway (Fig. 01) and walking the .8 of a mile to the site. The Hiko Springs site here (not to be confused with the Hiko Springs in Lincoln County) seems to have essentially, many of the same rock art designs as the site found in Grapevine Canyon, located only 4 miles to the north. The petroglyphs here are also pecked into vertical cliff of granitic rock covered with a dark patina called desert varnish. Because the formation of desert varnish is a very slow process, it suggests that these etchings are quite old.
02/02/2016 Trip Notes: On January 24th I received an email from Kenneth Todd, a resident of Golden Valley Arizona, that hiked Hiko Spring after finding this page on the Internet. He noted that a severe flow of water from a big storm, subsequent to my 2013 visit here, had washed away much of the heavy growth of the invasive shrubs and vegetation that had previously clogged the wash, making hiking down the wash much easier. He then indicated that by hiking about 1.2 miles past the cement foundation, he discovered a series of petroglyph panels on the wall above a flat rock on the right side of the wash. I decided to try it out for myself. Click here for petroglyph pictures and a description of this hike ... Hiko Spring (Lower) Hike.
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10/31/2013 Trip Notes: For today’s visit, I met up with the Rock-hounds from Henderson’s Senior Facility, who made a stop here before continuing on to Grapevine Canyon. Even though it was cool, it was sunny without the clouds and winds I had experience earlier in the week. The majority of the petroglyphs here are on the cliffs (Figs. 03-09) east of the foundations and along the saddle you have to scramble over to get to the other side of the spring. By no means do they end here. You can spot several more (Fig. 10) after climbing over the saddle past the spring. Though nowhere as prolific as those down the road at Grapevine Canyon, there are enough here to peak the interest of the average desert explorer. From something I found on the Internet, I’m inclined to believe that you can find even more by hiking another half mile further into the canyon (Fig. 11). Unfortunately, Blake and I hiked down the wash too far to the left and got buried up to our shoulders in some very high reeds (Figs. 12 & 13). Though we were unable to find any visible signs of water, the amount of vegetation here suggests that it must not be too far under ground. I hope to hike further down this canyon wash on our next visit.
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| (Fig. 11) |
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10/27/2013 Trip Notes: Because I knew I would be hiking here in a few more days with the rock-hounds from the Henderson Senior Facility, I decided to try and locate this site and perform some basic exploration of the area. Because the weather on today’s visit was very cold, overcast and windy I did not stay long. After a couple of passes, I was finally able to find the unmarked turn-off (Fig. 01). From the road, there are two or three 4WD roads (Fig. 14) that run parallel with the wash that runs down to the area of the spring at the opening of the canyon. About halfway to the canyon opening I found the remnants of a fence, as seen in the triptych in (Fig. 15), that appeared to have spanned the entire width of the wash as one time. I have no idea as to why this was placed here, except for the purpose to denote a property line or claim, which may have been connected to the pipes and foundations (Figs. 16 & 17) that I discovered at the bottom of a cliff, left (north) of the spring and canyon entrance. The smaller foundation (Fig. 17) looked as though it may have surrounded a shallow well of some type. Because the area surrounding the spring where the wash goes through the canyon opening was so overgrown with trees, weeds and bushes, mostly Bearclaw (Fig. 18), you have to scramble over the small saddle to the left in order to access the remainder of the use trail that continues to run down through the canyon.
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| (Fig. 18) |
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