Faranuf From The Madding Crowd: Adventures Living In The Chiricahua Mtns And On The Road: March 22 -- Gold Butte's Khota Circus, and how I almost missed it...

I wanted one last grand finale before leaving SE Nevada today (Sunday), so I headed to the Gold Butte area and the longest rock art panel in in Clark County, if not in all of Nevada. The 6am morning sky was cloudy, perfect weather for viewing petroglyphs. I turned off onto the dirt road from the Gold Butte Byway and parked about a mile from the start of the trail to Khota Circus as I'd been told that the road after the poppy re-vegetation sign was "questionable" (it wasn't; my 4-wheel-drive Tundra could have done it in a snap). Here's the view looking back on the road I traveled --

And the parking area --

And a closeup of the sign for the replanting of the rare Las Vegas Bearpoppy (I didn't see any) --

I hiked down the road -- and actually had to hunt for the Khota Circus entry point as there were spur roads that were temporarily confusing --

Ah -- THERE it is!

The trail (well marked) goes along a sandy wash -- VERY sandy in spots. But the views more than made up for the slog --

OK, time for a somewhat of a self-portrait, featuring my well-worn Asolo hiking boots and gaiters --

And a bit of an expressionistic self-portrait --

Spring blooms are just beginning, at least in this section of Nevada --

After about 2 miles from the trailhead I came upon this viewpoint, little knowing that I could actually SEE the rock panels from here -- if I only knew where to look. Can you make them out?

A little further on, the trail wound down into a canyon. I'm still looking for the rock panels --

I took this photo, not noticing that, once again, the petroglyphs are in my field of view --

Wow, a nice sandstone sculpture! But meanwhile, I still can't discern the petroglyphs, even though

they are just to the right of this photo --

I spied this shrub full of these exquisite, tiny flowers and used my 17-55 f/2.8 lens with my new extension tube on, making it a macro lens. Now I could spot THIS, but I didn't see the eye-level rock art panel just to the left --

So I continued hiking along the edge of the formations, though there wasn't much of a trail. But the views were spectacular --

Then the formations ended, and I decided to head back as it was after 11am. So after this photo, I had lunch in a shaded alcove, took a short snooze, lying down on a flat rock...

OK, one last time before I head out...I go back to that earlier viewpoint -- and I can FINALLY see them. Weird -- how could I have missed them when they were practically in my face? Perhaps the powers that seem to be here didn't want me to "see" them until now...

Khota (supposedly the name of the local who first came upon them) Circus, the longest rock petroglyph panel in Nevada.

Some of the scenes and symbols were obvious; others, less so.

I then took some macros of some of the figures, using my tube extension --

You can see the deep incisions into the rock.

And then I looked up to the right -- and saw the most pristine set of rock petroglyphs that I've ever seen; it was as if they had been done yesterday, and the reason for their pristine quality has to be their inaccessibility --

A closeup --

And the panels in relation to each other --

What an amazing, magical and utterly mystical place. I thanked the gods for giving me the "sight" to see these, and headed back on the trail, where I was blessed with this lizard, which I nearly trod on as it blended so well with the sand --