My good neighbor, Linda Schefeick, called the other day. She knew I was writing about Witter Springs, Bachelor Valley and a history of Lake County.
She said, “There’s an old Indian rock in Bachelor Valley.”
I didn’t know that. I was interested.
“Where is it?” I asked.
“On a piece of land next to mine in the center of the valley. Would you like to see it?”
I said, “You bet your bottom dollar. I’m ready any time you say.”
Sunday, the last day in January of this year, Linda drove over and picked us up in her vehicle. I say, “vehicle” because, at the time, I didn’t know what it was. The contraption was, obviously, in good shape. It was, by the lettering on the dashboard, a Rhino. What is a Rhino, you may ask? A Rhino is like an open air pint-sized Land Rover with a tire tread on its little wheels that looked as if it could climb straight up a mountain.
In we got and off we went. Down Bachelor Road to the back of the valley and into a long country driveway. Past cattle, horses, and sheep, with twists and turns, we crossed a rickety bridge over a deep ravine with water at the bottom of the nearly dry stream. Then up a hill we rolled. Around an ancient sky-blue weathered Caddy with no wheels, past a barn that had been new when the white man first discovered Lake County more than 200 years ago. That ancient great grandfather of a barn was tilted over to one side and about to fall like an old sailing ship broken on the rocks. Through a gate (which Linda had to open), and across a wide hill, 100 yards across and ending below in another ravine.
In high water times the stream must be 40 feet wide and 20 feet deep. Now only a trickle ran over the gravel at the bottom.
Going across that hillside I hung on tho the roll-bar with a death grip. As we moved along the side of the hill, I feared the Rhino might decide to roll over. That was OK. I had a death grip on the roll bar. But once the Rhino started to do its thing on that steep hillside, it wouldn’t quit until the driver, Christina, and I were in the deep ravine below chewing on the gravel in the bottom.
Everything worked out fine. We got to the Indian rock and parked a dozen feet away. The rock was looked like a giant gray egg. It was half out of the ground, 10 feet in diameter and covered with algae stars and rock carvings. It must have rolled from a precipice of stone at the top of what had been a mountain peak a million years ago.
When I examined the surface of he rock there were more surprises. On the convex top there were a score of small 1-inch-diameter depressions. Each was a half inch deep and one was 4 inches across and 2 inches deep. What were they? The largest depression might have been used as a mortar for grinding acorns but I had no idea what the rest of them were.
More strange and compelling were the hundreds of striations. They were mostly vertical, half-inch deep, and they varied in length from 6 inches to a foot. By their worn appearance in the hard stone, they had been cut 1,000 years ago.
Most interesting of all was what I found at a place near the top. Two, nearly perfect circles, each about 4 inches in diameter, were cut into the stone. One of the circles had a pivot hole dead center. It might have supported a vertical wooden stick, a gonome, and allowed the user to sight along the rock for the summer or winter solstice.
I have seen other Indian rocks in Lake County like this one. Ten thousand years ago the ice was receding and with the end of the last Ice Age, there were few oaks. Bachelor Valley might have been more free of woody obstructions. By the rock’s location, and by the height of the rock above the valley, a Pomo with a burning torch could have been seen a dozen miles away.
As I stood there in wonder, I could almost imagine a Pomo Native American was busy scratching away his graffiti signature on the rock. It was an experience I will never forget.
