Grimes Point

Just east of Fallon on U.S. 50 (within a few seconds in an F-18 from the Naval Air Station) is Grimes Point. Thousands of years ago, this promontory used to jut out into Lake Lahontan (when it rained more than it evaporated here in the Great Basin, filling up the valleys with large lakes) and native Americans made their camps here on the marshy shorelines and tagged the varnished boulders with abstract designs and images of creatures both real and imaginary.

Sometimes I am amazed that any of these prehistoric sites survived the torments of vandalism and target practice and archeological pilfering, but maybe it says something about just how many of these sites there must have once been that some still remain relatively intact.

Castle Gardens: June 2012