Abo Pass Pictograph Site

I visited the Abo Pass Pictograph Site on the late morning/early afternoon of Tuesday, April 19, 2022.  I had spent the morning at the Arroyo Del Tajo site and, while I was in the general area, I wanted to see if I could locate the remains of the Abo Pass Pictograph site.  On prior visits to the area (I had been there twice before, once to visit the Abo Ruins, and again to locate the Two Serpents site) I had not been able to locate this site.  Before I left on this April 2022 trip, I studied Sally Cole’s 1984 paper entitled “Abo Painted Rocks Documentation and Analysis” which she had prepared for the Salinas National Monument.  I was pretty sure I would be able to locate the site this time, and sure enough, I did.  Although the site is near Highway 62, it is surrounded by two fences — as a result you can’t get very close.  I was able to see a little rock art through my binoculars, so I took a number of pictures with my Nikon P1000.  When I got home I was able to see more art in some of the pictures.   Unfortunately, there is  large amount of vandalism present at the Abo Pass Painted Rocks site, primari1y in the form of modern graffiti. Cole states (on page 2 of the report) “Names and letters appear, both large and small, scratched and painted over and beside the rock art. The most noticeable vandalism is in the northeast section, at Panel 10, where large painted words cover many rock art elements and make them unrecognizable.”  To see my blog post that includes my visit to this site, look here.  Below are some of the photos I took that day.