The Pahranagat Valley and its surrounding wilderness' have been my nemesis throughout 2023. I set out in January - nearly a year ago now - to follow the Pahranagat Trail in search of rock art that I'd discovered through the trip reports of other intrepid explorers. Ultimately - and luckily, quickly - I realized that without more information, I was searching for a needle in a haystack, so I headed east and south - to Utah and Arizona - where I discovered some of the most amazing rock art that I was not looking for.
Strike one.
Determined to succeed - or more likely... glutton for punishment 
- I hit the internets hard upon my return, searching for any additional information I could find. And, in a stroke of genius - or more likely... desperation - I filed my first (and I can only hope last), Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
That request was promptly denied. Apparently, understandably, and thankfully, FOIA requests do not allow our government to "release cultural resource site location information to the general public. This information is protected under National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), Section 304 (and subsequent DOI regulations and policy)."
Even so, some of my research seemed to lead (me to believe) that I knew were more of the rock art was located, and so once again it was back to the Pahranagat in June where we once again came up empty on the main site I was trying to find. It also turned out to be the trip where the memory card in my camera became corrupted, resulting in the complete loss of all my photos for the entire trip.
The Curse of the Pahranagat was certainly strike two.
And so, just as the year is set to expire, we're headed back. This time, I'm armed with more memory cards. And more hints as to the location of a site that I've been trying to see for the better part of a year.
The only question remaining is whether the Third Time's the Charm or it's Three Strikes and I'm Out.
Worth the Effort | Third Time #1 - The Pahranagat Valley and its surrounding wilderness' have been my nemesis throughout 2023. I set out in January - nearly a year ago now - to follow the Pahranagat Trail in search of rock art that I'd discovered through the trip reports of other intrepid explorers. Ultimately - and luckily, quickly - I realized that without more information, I was searching for a needle in a haystack, so I headed east and south - to Utah and Arizona - where I discovered some of the most amazing rock art that I was not looking for. Strike one. Determined to succeed…
Pahranagat Man | Third Time #2 - Our exit from Big Rocks Wilderness after lunch on Thursday gave us only a few hours in the afternoon -- and a couple hours the following morning - before heading to Las Vegas for our $27 flights home on Spirit Airlines. How Spirit can provide flights for so little money is beyond me, but it has made the decision to leave the Tacoma in Las Vegas even easier - for the cost of a single tank of gas, both of us can fly roundtrip, saving 40 hours of travel time in the process - on the ends of a trip.…
