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Monday Field Trip Registration

You may choose to attend 1 Monday field trip. First you need to be registered for the ARARA conference. Once you have done so, you will receive an email with a code you need to register for a field trip. Field trips registrations are on a first-come, first-served basis.

While we are offering three days of field trips this year you may only sign up for two trips. Participants who sign-up for more than one field trip per day or for three trips will be removed from all field trips for which they have registered.

Each individual coming to the conference should complete a separate registration. You can add a guest to your registration if a spouse does not have an email address.

You can cancel your registration yourself. Come back to this page, and then you will see an "Already registered" link below the "Register" button for your trip.  Click on this link and you will have a cancel option.

We may cancel trips with less than four participants and move those participants to other trips based on their preferences.

Registration closes on May 10. There will not be onsite field trip registration for field trips at the conference.

If you need help please contact Troy Scotter at 801-362-1206 or email.


Weather: Average daytime temperatures in Visalia during May are about 70 degrees with high termperatures in the mid 80s.

Monday Field Trips

  • 10Mon. Wind Wolves Preserve: Pleito Creek and additional sites as time allows

    • 26 May 2025
    • 6:30 AM - 5:00 PM
    • Visalia, CA
    • 7
    • 9 registrants
    Register

    Site Description:The Wildlands Conservancy owns The Wind Wolves Preserve and they are allowing us to visit this site which is not often open to visitation. The Pleito Creek site is known as among the most vivid and colorful rock art in California, possibly in the U.S. This rock art is Chumash in style but is on the extreme boundary of their territory with the Yokuts. The paintings in the largest cave at CA-KER-77 can be viewed and photographed fine from the cave entrance. No one will be allowed to physically enter the cave because of the sensitivity and condition of the pictographs.
    Difficulty: Walking distances to view the rock art are short, but in some places a steep hill and rocks need to be maneuvered. Moderately steep hill of 300 yards to the site.
    Vehicle Requirement: 4 Wheel Drive. Vehicles will be consolidated in Visalia. Limit of 4 vehicles
    Driving Time: 1hrs 45 minutes
    Distance (One Way): 110 miles to the Preserve gate additional distance within the Preserve
    Max Number of Participants: 15
    Fee: None
    Note: Due to the long distance departure time for this trip will be 6:30 a.m.
    Note: https://wildlandsconservancy.org/preserves/windwolves

    Show details

  • 05Mon. Exeter Rocky Hill (Archaeological Conservancy) (CA-TUL-83) (more difficult)

    • 26 May 2025
    • 7:30 AM - 5:00 PM
    • Visalia, CA
    • 5
    • 9 registrants
    Register

    Site Description: If a place in Tulare County could be chosen as the quintessential site of the Foothill Yokuts, Exeter Rocky Hill would be a prime candidate. This Tulare County site lies at the edge of the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the central valley of California. Exeter Rocky Hill, a prominent feature on the landscape, is a jumble of large granite boulders dotted with oak trees, creating a sharp contrast with the smooth grassy hills on each flank.
    The Yokod or Yokol (“d” and “l” sounds are interchangeable in their dialect) were the subtribe of Yokuts people who inhabited the foothill area west and south of the Kaweah River from Limekiln Creek, east of Lemon Cove, along the foothills to about present-day Lindsay. Their head village was on the south bank of the Kaweah River five miles north of Exeter. The Yokohl Valley, which Latta (1977,21,396) describes as “an unbroken seed producing area,” was named after the group that lived there. The Yokado called Exeter Rocky Hill Chahka Shahnau or Live Oak Place. There were good springs at four sites although there were temporary camps elsewhere around the hill. Badger Hill, the ridge north of Rocky Hill, now a gated subdivision, was known as Hawshau Shido or Paint Place. The Yokodo mined the white paint which they used in their paintings and traded with other Yokuts tribes.
    Rocky Hill was among the earliest recorded rock art sites in California. H. W. Turner wrote the first report in 1891, describing the pictographs at Rocky Point, the quarry site on the North side of the hill. Stewart recorded the site on Captain Thew’s property in 1929, calling it Echo Cove. The site is now owned by The Archaeological Conservancy.
    Campbell Grant considered the most interesting Yokuts sites to be on Exeter Rocky Hill with what he characterized as the split-head anthropomorph the dominant motif of the area. Indeed, it is more commonly rendered and in more variations at Tulare 83 than at any other site. The pictographs are painted in shades of red, black and white. Variants of the human figure or anthropomorphs, zoomorphs and abstracts are all present in abundance.
    The tour begins on relatively level ground, but eventually visitors will be led higher up into the boulder field in their quest to visit these incredible rock art displays. The walking distances are short, but in some places steep, with rocks to be maneuvered over and around.
    Difficulty: Strenuous
    Vehicle Requirement: Any
    Driving Time: 20 minutes
    Distance (One Way): 15 miles
    Max Number of Participants: 12
    Fee: None

    Show details

  • 01Mon. Davis Ranch

    • 26 May 2025
    • 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM
    • Visalia, CA
    • 24
    • 3 registrants
    Register

    Site Description: Multiple sites around base of foothills adjacent to orchards, mostly red, some faded pictograph and one polychrome panel. An interesting panel of painted grooves that may have been a solar timekeeping device. The grooves remain but the capstone that cast a shadow on the grooves collapsed a few years ago in a wet winter. There are many Bedrock Mortars around the site. A striking large red figure on the hill overlooking the site.
    Difficulty: Moderate. Up to two miles of walking, some through pasture on cow paths and some on orchard roads. 150-foot elevation change. There is poison oak guarding some of the panels as well as prime rattlesnake environment.
    Vehicle Requirement: Any
    Driving Time: 25 minutes
    Distance (One Way): 18 miles
    Max Number of Participants: 25
    Fee: None

    Show details

  • 02Mon. Twin Buttes and Venice Hills (Roughly a half day trip)

    • 26 May 2025
    • 8:00 AM - 1:00 PM
    • Visalia, CA
    • 18
    • 4 registrants
    Register

    Site Description:This trip will visit two small sites with red pictographs Many are faint but they show well with D-Stretch. Venice Hills is the closest site to Visalia and consists of paintings on an outcrop up a slope a couple hundred yards along a cow path and less than 100 feet above surrounding citrus orchards. Twin Buttes has 3 or 4 panels of red figures. The site has been heavily vandalized, but some nice elements remain. One element in pristine condition has been characterized as a representation of a pregnant woman. Short, level walk of about 100 yards around an orange grove.
    Difficulty: Easy/Moderate. There may be some Poison oak at Twin Buttes
    Vehicle Requirement: Any
    Driving Time: 20 minutes.
    Distance (One Way): 13 miles
    Max Number of Participants: 20
    Fee: None

    Show details

  • 03Mon. Bacon Hill (CA-TUL-17)

    • 26 May 2025
    • 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM
    • Visalia, CA
    • 16
    • 10 registrants
    Register

    Site Description:Multiple painted panels on a large village site, Rock Shelter, recreational slide with historic inscriptions. The site has numerous bedrock mortars, cupules, painted grooves, a huge bear image, Mountain lion and Tule Elk. The site has been heavily impacted by agricultural development as well as gang graffiti. One visitor characterized the site as D-stretch heaven. 
    Difficulty: Moderate/strenuous. There is a fair amount of walking, some through tall, dry grass, weeds and Poison Oak, some on orchard roads. It is a rattlesnake environment.
    Vehicle Requirement: Any
    Driving Time: 20minutes
    Distance (One Way): 14 miles
    Max Number of Participants: 24
    Fee: None

    Show details

  • 04Mon. Hospital Rock (CA-TUL-24), Potwisha (CA-TUL-28), and Hammond

    • 26 May 2025
    • 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM
    • Visalia, CA
    • 5
    • 12 registrants
    Register

    Site Description:Hospital Rock - Large village site with interpretive panels. Large panel of red pictographs, rock shelter, and Potwisha: a polychrome panel on an outcrop above the middle fork of the Kaweah River. It is a beautiful walk of less than ¼ mile along the rocky bank of the river to the site. Both sites are in Sequoia National Park. The Hammond site is on private property just below the Park, in Three Rivers. It is on a large rock outcrop with red pictographs. D-stretch will be necessary for some of this panel.
    Vehicle Requirement: Any
    Driving Time: 60 minutes
    Distance (One Way): 41 miles
    Max Number of Participants: 15
    Fee: National Park entrance fee
    Comment: https://www.nps.gov/places/hospital-rock-picnic-area-exhibits.htm

    Show details

  • 07Mon. Rocky Hill (Gill) (CA-TUL-26)

    • 26 May 2025
    • 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM
    • Visalia, CA
    • 14
    • 8 registrants
    Register

    Site Description:See the description for Trip 6 above for information on Exeter Rocky Hill. Tulare 26 and Tulare 83 are less than a mile apart over a ridge.
    This is a large polychrome pictograph rock shelter with several other nearby decorated panels, The main shelter has dozens of images of all sorts of animals and various depictions of humans and abstract figures. There are numerous bed rock mortars as well as a slide, cupules, a basket shaped rock and a prominent split rock slide, and another rock shelter. The site has some boulders suggestive of genitalia of both sexes. There are cupules on the rock suggestively female and nearby is a panel including small, delicate handprints.
    Difficulty: Easy to Moderate, 1/3 mile walk up a slope on a ranch road. About 100 to 150 foot elevation change.
    Vehicle Requirement: Any
    Driving Time: 20 minutes
    Distance (One Way): 15 miles
    Max Number of Participants: 20
    Fee: None

    Show details

  • 08Mon. Round Valley

    • 26 May 2025
    • 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM
    • Visalia, CA
    • 0
    • 13 registrants
    Join waitlist

    Site Description:Rare access to a site cluster in a canyon in the foothills, located on a private cattle ranch. The trip includes multiple pictograph loci, cupules, and impressive mortars. The conference logo is one of the paintings on this trip. Access is difficult, especially to some of the higher sites, involving steep slopes, uneven footing, thick and thorny vegetation, poison oak, boulder navigation, and possible rattlesnake encounters
    Difficulty: Strenuous: 2 mile round trip hike 200-250 ft elevation change.
    Vehicle Requirement: Any
    Driving Time: 45 minutes
    Distance (One Way): 30 miles
    Max Number of Participants: 12
    Fee: None

    Show details

  • 09Mon. Lemon Cove: Thanksgiving Site (Half day)

    • 26 May 2025
    • 8:00 AM - 1:00 PM
    • Visalia, CA
    • 13
    • 1 registrant
    Register

    Site Description:This is a small site within view, and about 1.5 miles, from Jim and Mary Gorden’s home. When the Gorden family was growing up, Mary would lead everyone on a hike to the site to “walk off” Thanksgiving Dinner. Thus, it became known to the family as the Thanksgiving Site. The site has several anthropomorphic figures in red, in various states of fading. The most dominant figure has a distinctly round mid-section and no evidence it is a male. The ceiling of the shelter is white, decorated with red dots, circles and angular figures. In a nod to our banquet presentation: “Are They Stars?”
    Difficulty: Moderate. It is about 1/3 mile and maybe a 200-foot climb through a foothill environment with rocks, squirrel holes, gopher mounds and possible rattlesnakes. Some rocks to climb over to get close to the panel. No poison oak at this site.
    Vehicle Requirement: Any
    Driving Time: 20 minutes
    Distance (one way): 18 miles
    Max Number of participants: 12
    Fee: None

    Show details

  • 06Mon. Exeter Rocky Hill (Archaeological Conservancy) (easier)

    • 26 May 2025
    • 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM
    • Visalia, CA
    • 8
    • 9 registrants
    Register

    Site Description: If a place in Tulare County could be chosen as the quintessential site of the Foothill Yokuts, Exeter Rocky Hill would be a prime candidate. This Tulare County site lies at the edge of the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the central valley of California. Exeter Rocky Hill, a prominent feature on the landscape, is a jumble of large granite boulders dotted with oak trees, creating a sharp contrast with the smooth grassy hills on each flank.
    The Yokod or Yokol (“d” and “l” sounds are interchangeable in their dialect) were the subtribe of Yokuts people who inhabited the foothill area west and south of the Kaweah River from Limekiln Creek, east of Lemon Cove, along the foothills to about present-day Lindsay. Their head village was on the south bank of the Kaweah River five miles north of Exeter. The Yokohl Valley, which Latta (1977,21,396) describes as “an unbroken seed producing area,” was named after the group that lived there. The Yokado called Exeter Rocky Hill Chahka Shahnau or Live Oak Place. There were good springs at four sites although there were temporary camps elsewhere around the hill. Badger Hill, the ridge north of Rocky Hill, now a gated subdivision, was known as Hawshau Shido or Paint Place. The Yokodo mined the white paint which they used in their paintings and traded with other Yokuts tribes.
    Rocky Hill was among the earliest recorded rock art sites in California. H. W. Turner wrote the first report in 1891, describing the pictographs at Rocky Point, the quarry site on the North side of the hill. Stewart recorded the site on Captain Thew’s property in 1929, calling it Echo Cove. The site is now owned by The Archaeological Conservancy.
    Campbell Grant considered the most interesting Yokuts sites to be on Exeter Rocky Hill with what he characterized as the split-head anthropomorph the dominant motif of the area. Indeed, it is more commonly rendered and in more variations at Tulare 83 than at any other site. The pictographs are painted in shades of red, black and white. Variants of the human figure or anthropomorphs, zoomorphs and abstracts are all present in abundance.
    This trip will focus on the sites around the base of the hill and not go to the sites farther up the hill into the boulders. There is a ladder to climb to get to one shelter, but a fair amount of the paintings can be viewed from below.
    Difficulty: Easy to moderate
    Vehicle requirement: Any
    Driving Time: 20 Minutes
    Distance (One Way): 15 miles
    Maximum Number of Participants: 15

    Show details

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