October 9, 2026
I went to the Mussentuchit area to search (in vain, it turns out) for a rock art panel that I’ve been wanting to find for about three years. Shortly after this trip I learned that some of the info (or, more accurately, my own assumptions about it) was incorrect about the rock art location, but I still had a good day hiking and exploring the flat surrounding Twin Peaks. With sunrise getting later going into autumn, I didn’t have to wake up any earlier than I normally do and I arrived at my starting point shortly after the sun came up. During the drive down there were a few scattered clouds in the distance dropping some moisture, and I even saw a bit of lightning. For the first of three hikes I did, I began near Mussentuchit Wash and wandered around its rim and the flats northeast of Twin Peaks. I saw some inscriptions that I’d been to before but this time I noticed a collapsed rock structure and broken metate that I hadn’t noticed earlier. I searched all around many overhangs and found broken metates, hammerstones, potsherds, and worked pieces of flint. I returned to the car after hiking about 3.5 miles and then drove to the start of my next hike.
I parked on the dam at Twin Peaks Pond and hiked southeast across the flat, aiming for some Curtis Formation sandstone in the distance. Along the way I found a huge worked chert piece and passed by a volcanic dike. I had hoped to find more overhangs in this area but the Curtis sandstone layers were thinner here and eroded into small steps rather than massive shelves. There was a break in the cliffs that led to a good view out over Mussentuchit Flat. One sandstone knoll had some pieces of wire wrapped around rocks at its base, which I assumed were left over from a survey tower on top, so I climbed up hoping to find the remains of the tower or maybe even a survey marker, but it was bare up there. It was a little warm hiking back to the car, and I arrived there after about 4.5 miles total for this hike.
My bum foot was still feeling okay and some clouds rolled in to cool things off so I did one last short hike. I walked along a line of cliffs between Sand Cove Spring and Road End Reservoir. It sprinkled just after I began but then let up after a few minutes. I found many chert flakes, and an old camp spot with a fire ring and wood lying around it, but not much else. I headed back toward the car in a straight line, first across a barren, sandy flat, and then along the road, and I found a scraper right in the middle of the bladed dirt road.
I was surprised that I’d hiked about 10.5 miles in all, which is not only the longest hike I’ve done since I got this heel spur or whatever it is a few months ago, but also one of the longer hikes I’ve done all year. I had time to check out a rough spur road on the drive home, at the end of which I could see what looked like a small concrete foundation in the satellite imagery. It turned out to be a wooden frame, with a cable attached as if to pull it by. Maybe it was used as a drag to smooth out the road? Continuing toward home I saw wildfire smoke in the canyon above Quitchupah Creek, which I think was a prescribed burn. I had been smelling smoke all day so that’s probably the source.
Photo Gallery: Twin Peaks Flat