2018-12-16 Sears Point

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2018-12-16 Sears Point

Hoping that the clouds had no rain in them we decided it was time for a second attempt to get to Sears Point.  This petroglyph site near Gila Bend is located on a volcanic outcrop overlooking the Gila River floodplain.  Last year when we attempted to get there we were stopped a a simple one foot drop onto the sandy trail of the floodplain.   Up to that point a high clearance was more than adequate but after that we ran across a couple of sketchy spots – I’m just glad we didn’t have to walk in – woohoo Roxie!  So with all the secondary trails going across the plain we managed to stick to the correct trail arriving at the site around 10 am.  It is an amazing site!  For the next four hours I was able to scramble around exploring the site, for sure I’d like to return!

Beware of the Bees!  After eating snacks out of the back of the jeep we managed to attract a ‘few’ bees. While I was up exploring the south cliff face someone decided the bees needed water!  After Jade had a drink out of her water bottle dish that someone left the bottle on the ground for the bees to have a drink.  By the time I got back to the jeep bees were covering half of the water bottle.  My solution was to buy a new bottle but apparently Jade was very attached to her bottle.  So after the failure of attempting to grab the bottle with the hiking stick – Karen drove the Jeep near the bottle so I could hop out, grab the bottle, shake off the bees and hop back into the vehicle. That pretty much worked except for a couple of bees that got into the Jeep with me. But it was decided we wouldn’t give desert bees water in the future since they had no notion of politely leaving after having a drink!

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Sears Point has been the site of human activity for thousands of years.  Archaic, Hohokam and Patayan petroglyphs can be found here.  Evidence in pottery styles places the Patayan culture west of the Painted Rock mountains and the Hohokam to the east.  Some evidence shows that people from the two cultures interacted and in the Gila Bend area lived in the same villages.  The different design elements included on the panels at Sears point are curvilinear, rectilinear, anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, abstract, and stylistic figures.  The quadrupeds with D shaped bodies, that we find here, are similar to those found in the Coso Range of California.  Sears Point also contains geoglyphs, rock shelters, rock alignments, sleeping circles and shrines.  (We found petroglyphs 🤣)   This provides us with a good reason to go back – if I ever needed one!

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