Falling Man Site
Hike Review
We hiked around and explored the Falling Man site in Gold Butte National Monument.
We were aided by the GPS coordinates found on this blog: https://www.gjhikes.com/2022/04/falling-man-site.html. Without it, I doubt we would have found everything we found and had such a wonderful time exploring all the petroglyphs.
We did not follow any set paths; rather, we explored in an impromptu fashion and used the GPS coordinates to help us find the next objective.
While there were lots of footprints about, this site does not get much foot traffic and only passed by one other couple during our entire time there.
Even with the GPS coordinates, we had a tough time finding all the petroglyphs. This is because this site has tall rock formations, and the petroglyphs can be rather small. We had to hike up and down rock formations and try to figure out how to get to certain rock terraces that we thought could hold petroglyphs.
There was plenty of parking at the trailhead, but no bathrooms.
What I Learned
Petroglyphs are so cool! For the longest time, I couldn’t understand why MAK of Bound for Nowhere was so fascinated by petroglyphs, but now that I’ve seen one in person, I get it. When you see a petroglyph, sometimes, it makes sense to you. You see one and you go, “That’s a person, or a goat, or something pretty obvious.” But sometimes, you see one and it doesn’t immediately make sense to you, so you start to wonder what it could be. You start to wonder why someone would spend so much time marking a rock wall with symbols. You start to wonder if the motivations for drawing them were for survival, for religious reasons, or maybe just for fun. And with all of that, it becomes very much fun to find them, stare at them, and enjoy them.
When I think about Native Americans, I imagine them in cloth or wooden teepees; as that’s what I’ve seen in movies. However, walking through the Falling Man Site reminded me that people have always taken shelter in places that offer protection from the elements and have access to water. And with the sandstone caves that were all around this area, it was easy to imagine people living in the caves — which made me wonder what this place would have sounded like if there were dozens or hundreds of people living here.
What Happened?
1.7 miles, 1 hr 36 mins, 355 ft of ascent
Gold Butte National Monument is a place that I had not heard about before I started planning for our Nevada trip, and I didn’t think much of it even though it’s a huge plot of land east of Las Vegas. What really caught my attention was the petroglyphs that we could see. Neither Cassie nor I had seen petroglyphs in person, so we were eager to see what all the fuss was about.
I had found GPS coordinates of a few standout petroglyphs, and we first headed to Newspaper Rock as that had stood out to me on the pictures that I had seen. Because there are no designated trails and multiple levels to this site, we tried to find a way to the GPS coordinate for Newspaper Rock, but found ourselves about 30 feet too high for where it should be. We found a gully that we scrambled down, and we were able to get to it.
We found Newspaper Rock to be even more impressive than we thought it’d be as the petroglyphs were so well preserved. Because of the darker rock, the carved-out parts contrasted cleanly, and there were so many different symbols on the rock. After discussing different symbols and their possible meanings, we explored the area further before heading out to see Falling Man. We initially climbed too high on the rock and didn’t see it, but when we circled back and approached the coordinate from the north, we were able to see it. We hoped that this wasn’t a sign of a sacrificial ceremony as there was a tall cliff to the east of it.
We then started to hike out, but we then ran into Calvin’s Rock, which was this huge boulder that was covered from head to toe with petroglyphs. We took a ton of pictures and finally extricated ourselves as we had plans for more hiking and we were running behind.
