Brownstone Canyon is an incredible site in the La Madre mountains. The pictographs are some of the densest and most vibrant you will ever come across. The color variety is amazing, too…black, red, white, yellow and a very small amount of blue. There are also several petroglyphs throughout the area, too, as well as several agave roasting pits and some stone circles. This area has it all, truly a great place to explore, wander and marvel at the long history of prehistoric man in this area. You’ll even find a couple of old dams, from some of the very first non-native residents.
This area is a recognized and registered archaeological district, formally known as the Brownstone Canyon Archaeological District. The site was registered on September 22, 1982. The BLM has closed many of the former dirt roads to this location, but some idiots are still doing illegal off-roading around this area…I have witnessed this firsthand while hiking. For now, the best way to protect this site from these kinds of people is for the BLM to permanently block their trails & to keep the exact location hard to find. Please respect this area, it is an amazing and irreplaceable view into our prehistoric past.
Please click the images below:
There are many different routes to these pictographs that are mentioned on the web, and varying accounts of open/closed roads and trails. I have taken photos of the rock art in Utah the past few years ( flying out from Boston each time) and am now switching my attention to Nevada. This is the most intriguing and spectacular of the panels that I have come across. Given my age (will be 70), I am trying to avoid hikes that are too long or entail too much elevation gain. Do you have any recommendations? Thank you.
Hi Gregory – Thanks for checking out my blog! Most of the roads that lead into the canyon are now closed. There are new neighborhoods going in where the roads once started from and they’re all part of the developer’s land with large “NO TRESPASSING” signs posted throughout. I see people ignore these signs all the time and drive towards the canyon…I certainly don’t condone and recommend this. So, the only ‘legal’ way of accessing Brownstone Canyon is via a pretty rigorous hike.
Love this. I was just hiking this area yesterday and found some additional INCREDIBLE pictograph panels that I need to head back up to photograph. Very large walls that are inaccessible to most. I wonder how the natives scaled these sites.
As mentioned, I parked at the signs you talked about and hiked in. It was a very long 5 miles of hiking, each direction. I did see that some drove or rode to the fenced area at the start of Brownstone.
This is my new favorite place in the area. I cant wait to explore it some more. Thank you for sharing your incredible photos and experiences here.