I suspected that I hadn't found the main bowl quarry location when I explored this area in November 2018. Additional explorations in January 2019 (first alone, then with two former USFS friends Sheldon H. and Milton B., and soon after with another friend, rock art authority Alan C.) revealed the impressive extent of this site. This page documents two days of explorations, which had very different weather conditions. This explains why subjects in some images appear dry, while others were wet from the rain. Boulder 1:

Bowl preform removal scar After being uncovered from decades of dirt, roots and leaves.

This is a very interesting bowl indication. It appears that another bowl was in the early stages of production underneath the earlier bowl scar.

Another image of the same boulder, showing an additional bowl extraction scar that had been covered by earth and leaves.

Boulder 2:

This boulder exhibits at least three bowl preforms which had been partially formed, as well as a bowl extraction scar.

Two of the bowl preforms on Boulder 2. Note the unusual linear incised lines enclosing each preform.

Detail of one of the rough bowl preforms, with cupule-like hole in the center. I'm not sure what these holes were for; they appear on bowl preforms at several local sites.

Milton's dog Lee on Boulder 2, showing scale.

Boulder 3:

At first I thought this half-buried rock was a detached preform...

But it is still attached to the parent rock.   Very nice!

Side view of the bowl preform and parent rock.

Nearby, we did find a detached preform...

As well as a bowl fragment... Note the grooves in the bowl shard's interior, evidence of the pecking process that produced the bowls. We left this piece in place, but sadly, the next time I was there, someone had stolen it...

Boulder 4:

Two bowl preforms were in the procees of being chiseled out of this boulder.

Another view...

Boulder 5:

A single preform

Another view, showing where the preform was being chipped away from the parent rock.

From another angle...

Boulder 6:

Yet another bowl preform in the early stages.

Another detached bowl preform.

Boulder 7:

Bowl preform attached to vertical rock face. This rock was some distance away from the other cluster...

From the opposite side Alan C. is in the background, photographing a bowl removal scar.

This preform appears to have broken during the manufacturing process. The rock here seemed to be of a different type than the other group.

Boulder 8:

Bowl removal scar on a vertical rock face.

The average person would never recognize this for what it is...

Difficult to see - a pair of notches cut into the rock above the bowl scar.

Faint gouges hacked into a nearby rock face.

A nearby ridge holds a large boulder, carved "E.C. ELLER, 1880" (or 1886(?) - the last numeral is incomplete. The date was not carved with nearly the care of the block-lettered name.) This was likely Elisha Caleb Eller, who lived in the area in the 1800s.

Click here for a rendering of the soapstone bowl production process.

All Text & Images: Copyright 2019.