{Click on an image to enlarge, then use the back button to return to this page}
This page last updated on 10/11/2017
 |
| (Fig. 01) |
Here are a few simple guidelines you can follow that will help to preserve these unique and fragile cultural resources that are part of our heritage.
Guidelines for Preserving Rock Art. If you would like to learn more about the Nevada Site Stewardship Program, go to my page ... Nevada Site Stewardship Program (NSSP).
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. 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. There is also a white cross just in front of the guard rail.
Hike Description: Hiking from where we parked the car, you come to a concrete foundation slab on the north side of the wash. Just a few hundred feet beyond the slab you come to the 'upper' spring petroglyphs. This first group consists of several boulders on the side of a small hill just east of the concrete foundation slab. (refer to the pictures on the previous page). The elevation here is about 1,933 feet.
01/31/2017 Trip Notes: On January 31st Jim Herring, Ron Ziance, Bob Croke and myself made yet another trip to Hiko Spring. For the first time in months, it was a beautiful sunny day near 70 with almost no wind. Though Jim had never been to this site before, Bob, Ron and I visited it a year ago. Besides giving Jim the opportunity to view the great petroglyphs found at this site, we were curious to compare what we found on our visit of a year ago. Click here for pictures and description of this hike ...
Hiko Spring Hike - Trip Notes for 01/31/2017.
02/02/2016 Trip Notes: Even though I had heard that a heavy rain had cleared much the
dense growth, reeds and bushes that had been clogging the Hiko wash, I was amazed at how much the topography this area had been changed since my last visit. The pictures found in the collage (Fig. 02), show the difference between today (the top two pics) and my visit in 2013 (bottom three pics). The area where we entered the wash on today's visit wasn't even possible back in 2013.
Walking down the middle of the wash, there were many large clumps of reeds that had been uprooted and jammed against the sides of the washes' rocks and canyon walls (Fig. 01). As we hiked down the wash, we came upon nearly a half dozen areas (Fig. 03) where flowing water
percolated up through the sand, only to disappear back beneath the surface, usually less than a hundred feet later. We can only assume that the water originates from the spring near the beginning of the hike. In addition to the
green slime around these water areas, there were several green grassy areas located nearby (Fig. 04). (con't below)
 |
| (Fig. 02) |
 |
| (Fig. 03) |
 |
| (Fig. 04) |
Notes Continued: In the lower end of the wash a grouping of boulders contain dozens of individual petroglyph elements (Fig. 05). Of the more than 40-50 individual elements, most of these elements were of a very abstract design (Figs. 06 & 07). I was only able to discern three zoomorphs (possibly bighorn sheep) and maybe two anthroporphs (human-like figures) (Fig. 08). After examining this area we continued to walk down the wash. A few hundred yards further down we encountered another small grouping on the side of a hillside (Figs. 09 & 10). From here we continued to hike some more in the hopes of maybe coming to the end of the wash. Unfortunately, as the wash started to fill with more and more big boulders (Fig. 11), it also started to head downhill much steeper than previously (Fig. 12), and still be getting nowhere near the end. As we later determined we would still have had to continue more than a mile of tough hiking in order to reach the end of the canyon/wash.
 |
| (Fig. 05) |
 |
| (Fig. 06) |
 |
| (Fig. 07) |
 |
| (Fig. 08) |
 |
| (Fig. 09) |
 |
| (Fig. 10) |
 |
| (Fig. 11) |
