Indian Hill and the Cave of the Blue Sun

(guest post by Tim Newcomb)

There are many legends and stories in the deserts of Southern California. While SoCal is known for it’s beaches, the inland deserts hold many wonders and a history spanning back millennia before the Europeans came.  The harsh landscape of the Anza-Borrego and surrounding deserts is not hospitable, but people have survived here for thousands of years before modernity and the arid region preserves the history of the region well.

Some of this history is well known — Cabrillo, the missions, the Spanish war with Mexico, the building of the Transatlantic railroad in 1914.  But San Diego’s history is complex and much of it predates the arrival of the Spanish.

One of the most interesting legends, due to the surprising amount of evidence it has, is a story of an early 17th-century Spanish shipwreck in the middle of the desert near El Centro, then Lake Cahuilla (a large estuary, called  an “inland ocean” by the Spanish), and a corresponding Kumeyaay petroglyph that might have documented its arrival/ abandonment.

The story goes that Hernán Cortés had sailed up to the tip of Baja in search of pearls, and one of his three ships sailed into Lake Cahuilla.  Bad timing, because the lake, after thousands of years, was beginning to drain because of a shift in the Colorado River delta. The sailors had to walk back to their other ships in the Baja sea.  The locals recorded the stranded ship with a petroglyph. This could be one of “the earliest primary-source graphic representation of a historic event in American history” if true.

The ship is located six miles northwest of present-day El Centro inside an active U.S. naval bombing range.  It has remained there half-buried in the dunes for 400 years, according to locals.  But the find has not been confirmed by archaeologists, however the petroglyph of the ship has been confirmed as authentic.  This Petroglyph is off limits, because it’s on Navy property.

But not far from where this ship and petroglyph supposedly is, on the edge of what was Lake Cahuilla, now the much smaller Salton Sea, is a place called Indian Hill in the Anza-Borrego desert.  This area has long been inhabited by ancestors of the modern day Cahuilla, Cupeno, Diegueno, Yuman and Kumeyaay bands and tribes, for at least 6,000 years.  They left many marks on the harsh landscape, including morteros (where food, pigment, and various other things were ground), petroglyphs, and pictographs.

Most of these small communities were either forced on to reservations or simply left the area. The reservations of all these tribes are in driving distance from Indian Hill, where the cultures live on and are preserved fairly well, but the languages the mosaic of Uto-Aztecan languages they spoke are nearly extinct.  Local casinos, tribal councils and universities have been keeping them alive, but barely.

At Indian Hill is an exceptional example of these ancient communities.  As their home enviroment was harsh, the local tribes were not advanced as scraping out a living took constant attention.  Art was a luxury.  But at one cave — the Cave of the Blue Sun — several civilizations took time to create art.  In this cave, at least 1,000 years of art from several tribes is recorded, and possible a couple unknown people groups.  It’s an extraordinary oasis of historical culture in the harsh and unforgiving landscape.

Only 1.5 hours from the San Diego Metropolis, Indian Hill offers a hidden and direct look into southern California’s ancient and opaque history.  Thousands flood to San Diego Art museums weekly, but this ancient cave only gets a handful of visitors. The Kumeyaay tribe have been living in Southern California for at least 12,000 years and some archaeologists date some of the Indian Hill petroglyphs to 4,000 years old.

The location of this cave and other petroglyph caves is keep secret for fear of vandalism and thieves.  If you think this is absurd, Google “stealing petroglyphs” to see the great lengths thieves will go to cut them out of the rocks.  Many sites have already been damaged in the region and, to date, the Blue Sun has not been harmed.  With that in mind, leave only footprints and do not touch the petroglyphs.

The closest town to the area is Ocotillo, CA (not to be confused with Ocotillo Wells, CA which is a few miles north.  From Ocotillo, Take S2 North until you hit Mortero Canyon and follow the road to the train tracks and a 100 year old water tower. This is called the Dos Cabezas rail station which has been abandoned for decades.  The Water tower will be on your left when you cross the tracks, and you follow the road until you reach an archaeological area warning sign.  From there, it’s a short 1 mile hike to the set of mounds that the Cave of the Blue Sun and other petroglyph caves are under.

The entire area is littered with petroglyphs, pictographs and old caves that provided shelter to the tribes and the early pioneers. Remnants of thousands of campfires can be found, and the walls of any cave will be blackened with centuries of soot. Arrow heads can be easily found in the area, which were used by the Kumeyaay to hunt rabbits, reptiles, bighorn sheep and other fauna, as well as other stone tools, morteros and rock carvings.