Ghost Mountain Hike

Blair Valley

Monday was the one day out of the week that I wasn't feeling ill from a migraine, which was good timing because that was the day Bill took us up to Blair Valley for some hikes.  There were three circuits- one hike to a pictograph location, one to see some morteros, and one up Ghost Mountain.

Section of pictograph rock

I think the pictograph hike was my favorite.  It was mostly flat, but some challenging inclines for those of us not in great shape, and the plant life included many things we don't get to see lower down in our part of the desert. Giant stalks of agave and yucca run wild there, which is cool because those are the two plants you hear talked about as what the Native Americans use for everything. Yucca in particular is very fibrous and can be turned into cord, shoes, and all sorts of things we wouldn't imagine trying nowadays. The pictographs themselves were cool.  No one knows exactly what they mean, so we can all have our own theories.  Mel's favorite was that they showed pictures designing a new fish trap and a real estate opportunity- act now!  It's very interesting to think about the people who were here first and what their stories might have been, why they drew things in certain places and not others, what the images meant, if they were added to over the years. And how long will they last? Geoglyphs are disappearing due to erosion and people driving over them, will pictographs all face similar fates? Some early archaeologists worked to 'save' some pictographs by repainting them so they'd still stand out. That seems more like ensuring a tourist attraction than respecting a culture's images to me, but I could certainly be convinced to a different way of thinking.

Pictograph rock

The mortero walk was shorter but nice for getting another image of how people lived.  Morteros are indentations in rock where people ground acorns, seeds, etc. to make flour.  Some are pretty shallow, others deep enough to be more like a mortar and pestle arrangement.  When the Kumeyaay were going through this area they would stop here to grind what they'd gathered. Women's work of course, since men wouldn't have the patience for it. The sign at the head of the trail talked about how you should sit and quietly image what it would have been like for people using the area. We all laughed at this- none of us are willing to believe that a large group of women, having time to themselves, are going to sit quietly to work and not gossip, joke, and talk about their husbands while the men aren't around!  Some things don't change that much over time!

Some deeper morteros

The last hike was the hardest.  We went to climb Ghost Mountain to see the ruins of Marshal South's home. South is famous (here anyway) for packing up and moving his family out to live on top of Ghost Mountain back in the 1930s.  The official idea was that he was a writer and wanted to go 'back to nature' in the truest Romantic Emerson/Thoreau tradition, live like the native peoples had and then write articles about it for people back East so they could romanticism this way of life. According to Bill, who worked with one of the sons, the wife and kids hated it (and him too by the end I expect). They lasted about 10 years before Mrs South divorced her husband, took the kids and left. When we got to Ghost Mountain (they named it, no ghosts associated with the site to anyone's knowledge) all we could think was- why did it take her so long to divorce him? I'd have taken one look at the mountain and told my husband to enjoy his experiment, taken the Model T and headed back to civilization.

Along the 'trail' to the top of Ghost Mountain

Looking up Ghost Mountain, near the top

It's about a mile hike up a steep mountain on a narrow and not especially fun trail.  When the Souths lived there they would have had to haul up anything like food, water, supplies, etc. by hand. Maybe by mule if they had one. We all went up at our own pace and I was last. When I finally got to a flat place high up on the trail I thought I'd made it only to find that now there was a lot of rocks to climb up to get to the top. There's no way this guy just went out there to experience nature. I think he must have been hiding from the mafia or something. There's no other explanation for why it would seem like a good idea.

Ruins of Marshal South home

Long story short, peer pressure got me up the mountain that altitude sickness suggested I not climb.  The ruins of the small house and the water cistern they used are still there, along with the tin can trash pile they gathered over the years.  Kind of takes away from the living off the land theory, but maybe Mrs South put her foot down over something at least. The view was pretty cool, but not worth the hassle of living there. It did give you a good idea of how high up you were though. I've often wondered, especially on the drive to and from Yuma, what people were thinking to come out and settle these areas that aren't always hospitable now, let alone back then.  It must have been nearly impossible. I gain a whole new level of respect for the pioneers who did this. But you also have to wonder a little about their sanity for trying it.  In the case of the Souths and Ghost Mountain, I think you have to wonder about the sanity of the idea a lot. They weren't exactly living at Walden Pond out here.  

Going down, can finally make out the Jeep!