Picacho

Hot AF! The temp was only in the mid nineties. The reflection off the rocks was intense at ten in the morning. I had driven to Signal Hill earlier and my time now was limited. I wanted to be home by high noon as I had business commitments to attend to. The site was a good ways off the I-10 and behind one gate and still a solid hour on the Interstate. On the way in, I was super disappointed seeing the gate across the road so far back but it wasn’t locked, the chain just secured the gate closed. If you go, please make sure to close the gate, thank you.

I had heard about Picacho when I first started photographing petroglyphs. This site is not on the iconic peak between Phoenix and Tucson, it’s on the mountains north. Picscho isn’t really talked about in petroglyph hunting circles and this is great as far as I’m concerned, good for the site as well. The Picacho petroglyph site is south of Casa Grande Pueblo and I’m pretty sure the people that lived there are the same people that inscribed these rocks. 

I did not scramble on the rocks for photographs, I used my long lens, the AF VR Nikkor 80-400mm f4.5 - 5.6 D on my Nikon D780 on the first pass. I made the second pass with the same camera and the AF-S Nikkor 17-35 f2.8 D, both lenses utilizing a rotating polarizer filter. It was a bit alarming as when I tried to take the filter off the plastic threads of the long lens, the filter was stuck on because it was so hot. I literally started the car and used the air conditioning to cool the filter and lens so the filter would unstick from the lens threads. It is a must use device to cut through the glare of the nuking Arizona sun off the desert varnished rocks. 

The air conditioning trick worked!

Earlier, I had driven to Signal Hill so this was my second stop on the way back home. This place, even though it was hot AF is really cool. I did not climb, I’m saving that for a cooler day. There are rock tappings at the top boulders in a corner. I wasn’t to get up there with a wide zoom and see all the backside etchings. This is one of my favorite sites, I’ll definitely be back.