Hickison Summit Petroglyphs

Rock art at a pass on US 50

Hickison Petroglyph Recreation Area is a Bureau of Land Management site in Lander County, managed by the Mount Lewis Field Office and located along U.S. Highway 50 about 24 miles east of Austin. It sits near Hickison Summit, at roughly 6,500 feet on the western edge of Monitor Valley, where the Toquima Range and the Simpson Park Mountains meet. The state historical marker for the summit (No. 137) says it is named for rancher John Hickison, whose ranch road crossed the pass; other references give the name as Hickerson.

A BLM brochure for the self-guided tour describes the panels on the cliff face as typical of the central Great Basin curvilinear style. Most of the glyphs are scratched, with a few incised or pecked. The brochure is direct about the limits of what is known: who carved the designs, and when, is unknown. It offers hunting or fertility magic, or simple doodling, as possible meanings, and notes that many archaeologists read the recurring horseshoe shape as a female symbol. One panel holds two horseshoe forms, a bird track, and two sets of pecked parallel lines. A boulder near the end of the loop carries glyphs that differ from the rest of the site, including the only animal-like figure there. Hiking accounts describe the host rock as soft volcanic tuff that weathers easily.

Hunters, travelers, and the route west

The marker text explains the setting: the summit is a natural pass between two low buttes, and passes like it were used to funnel and ambush bighorn sheep and deer. Local archaeological sites contain mostly bighorn bone and horn. The marker suggests the nearby petroglyphs may carry ceremonial or hunting-magic meanings.

According to the brochure, hunting and living sites in the Hickison Summit area reach back as far as 10,000 B.C. Older sites in Big Smoky and Monitor Valleys date to a time when those valleys held lakes, including Lake Toiyabe and Lake Tonopah. As the climate dried, people turned to upland resources such as mountain sheep, deer, pinyon nuts, and ricegrass. By about 1850 the Western Shoshone lived as hunters and gatherers across the central Great Basin.

John C. Frémont’s party passed just south of the site in 1845. Captain James Simpson crossed the summit on May 26, 1859, while looking for a shorter route across Nevada, and the Pony Express and Overland Stage later followed his line. The brochure points out historic graffiti reading “RY” that may belong to a member of Simpson’s crew. Modern US 50 roughly follows the same corridor.

Visiting today

The area is open year-round. It has 16 campsites, a day-use area, toilets, grills, picnic tables, and trash cans, but no water, so bring your own. BLM sets a 14-day stay limit. A 2019 trail report described the campsites as free and first-come, first-served; confirm current terms with the Mount Lewis Field Office before relying on that. Published trail lengths vary, from about half a mile to a mile and a half depending on which spurs and overlooks are counted. The loop passes the panels and reaches overlooks of US 50 and of the Toquima Range, Big Smoky Valley, and Toiyabe Range.

These are fragile panels on soft rock. BLM states that cultural resources here are protected by federal law and that the rock must not be carved, painted, or otherwise altered. Do not touch the glyphs, stay on the trail, and leave everything in place. One 2020 visitor reported extensive recent graffiti that made the genuine petroglyphs hard to pick out.