If you’ve been reading these blog posts for a while, you know that there are many places, such as Serpent Mound in Ohio, World War II-era bomb targets, or 1930s-era Airway Navigation Beacons and Arrows, that are best viewed from the air!
Serpent Mound from Google Earth
Serpent Mound from the ground. The serpent is over 1300 feet long and is one of the most spectacular places to visit in the country.
Those circular lines are a bomb target from World War II. This one is about 30 miles west of Albuquerque.
This concrete arrow from around 1930 helped airmail pilots navigate across the country. This one is near Rodeo, New Mexico.
To make it easier to find posts in this blog that feature places best viewed from the air, I have added a new topic category to this blog called – From the Air. Just click on that category and you’ll pull up blog posts related to those places.
A place that has not been covered in this blog, and one that is best viewed from the air, is the lower Colorado River valley on the border of California and Arizona. The lower Colorado River valley has the only known collection of Intaglios in the country! Intaglios, oftentimes referred to as Geoglyphs, are etchings carved or scraped into the ground. The most famous intaglios in the world are the Nazca Lines in Peru.
To correct this oversight, my wife Claudia and I drove to Blythe, California with the dogs to start the new year off by checking out the Blythe Intaglios. Blythe is located where Interstate 10 crosses the Colorado River. And the Blythe Intaglios are finest concentration of intaglios in the lower Colorado River valley.
These are two of the intaglios located north of Blythe, California.
The Blythe Intaglios were even featured in a Hardy Boys mystery – The Mystery of the Desert Giants.
Not much is known about the Intaglios other than that they were made by native people sometime between 500 and 2000 years ago. They were not known to the general public until a pilot spotted them from the air in 1932.
Constructing an Intaglio is quite simple. Just scrape away the top level of the ground to reveal a different color of ground underneath. And when you walk around the Blythe Intaglios you can see how the shiny desert varnished ground of the lower Mojave Desert offers a perfect canvas for scraping out an image.
To reach the Blythe Intaglios, just drive north on US 95 from Blythe for 15 or 16 miles until you reach the turnoff for the intaglios.
You’ll see this monument on the east side of the road to mark the turn-off. The intaglios are to the west. The historical marker on the monument has disappeared.
You’ll also see a road sign announcing the intaglios. The sign for the southern approach was missing when we visited.
To protect the intaglios from off-road vehicles, the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) has installed fencing around the general area of the intaglios and has erected additional fences around the individual intaglios. As you can see in the Google Earth images, there are still plenty of tire tracks from before the fencing was erected.
As you can see, the Mojave Desert setting for the intaglios is quite stunning!
The Blythe Intaglios consist of three clusters of intaglios. Two of them are a short walk from where you can park your car. The third cluster (and maybe the best) requires a walk of less than a half mile across a dry rock filled wash and a scramble up to the intaglios.
Cluster 1 – Coordinates
33 48 01.36
114 31 54.84
We had hoped to fly our drone to get some pictures from above, but we had, unfortunately, picked a very cold and blustery day for our visit and could not fly the drone. The lower Colorado River valley has day-time highs of well over 100 degrees for most of the year – that’s why we went in January!
As you can see by the blowing dust, we picked a very windy day for our visit!
We did, however, get some very decent pictures from the ground.
Here is a side view of the human figure in cluster 1. It measures 102 feet from head to toe.
This enclosure in cluster 1 has an animal figure at the top and a faint coiled snake to the lower left. The animal figure is 54 feet from head to tail.
Cluster 2 – Coordinates
33 48 01.49
114 32 17.02
The view from the head of the human figure in cluster 2. This guy is 105 feet tall.
The view from the feet.
Cluster 3 – coordinates
33 47 43.07
114 32 17.02
You’ll cross this dry wash to reach cluster 3.
This animal figure at cluster 3 is 65 feet long.
The animal figure from a different angle.
The human figure at cluster 3 is 170 feet tall.
Here’s a view from the foot.
I hope you can see how special the intaglios are from these pictures. Especially the images of human figures. With many more intaglios in the area, one could make it a very cool hobby of looking for them. Here’s a Google Earth view of an intaglio on the Arizona side of the Colorado River.
The faint image of a human is in the center of the Google Earth view.
If you want to check out another large human figures drawn on the ground, you can find one near Baraboo, Wisconsin in Man Mound Park. At 214 feet tall, it’s even taller than the Blythe Intaglios.
Rather than being scratched in the ground like the intaglios, Man Mound is an effigy mound that was built around 1000 years ago by people from the Late Woodland Culture. Constructing the effigy mound would have involved digging dirt with stone and wood tools and then carrying the dirt in a basket to the mound site. It would have taken quite a bit of organization and a significant community effort to fill enough baskets to build the mound.
Here is a view of Man Mound from Google Earth.
As you can see in this image, Google Earth is less effective in a heavily wooded area than in an open desert.
If you look carefully at the Google Earth image, you can see that part of the legs of Man Mound were cut off by a county road. When local Baraboo residents discovered what had happened over 100 years ago, a concerted effort was made to protect the remaining mound from further destruction by making the area a county park.
My dog Petey and I visited Man Mound a few years ago and took these pictures:
Here is a side view of the effigy. If you look closely. you can see the arms hanging away from the body. The grass on top of the effigy is left uncut to prevent soil compaction and damage to the mound.
Here is a view from the legs looking toward the head and arms.
As you can see, the missing legs have been painted on the road.
And on the other side of the road, the missing feet have been marked on the ground by a tarp.
I hope you can see from this blog post that there are plenty of cool places worth checking out that can be seen better from the air than from the ground. But regardless of how well you can see something from the air, it is always best to check out something with an in-person on-the-ground visit. Google Earth is a great tool for planning expeditions in areas with unobstructed views, but it is not a substitute for getting out there on the ground and actually walking around!
Please feel free to share with me of any cool places you have found.
March 9, 2024 at 5:36 pm
Are there any missing intaglios around Blythe? I spotted some on Google maps, but who should I contact about it?
March 9, 2024 at 6:58 pm
I don’t know. The intaglios are on BLM land – so the people to contact would be the BLM. Sorry I can be of more help. DR
February 9, 2022 at 9:56 am
Outstanding depiction of what you have surveyed. Really enjoyed reading it! Say hello to Claudia
February 9, 2022 at 12:02 pm
Thanks – will do
January 17, 2022 at 6:18 am
Great post, David. Happy New Year to you.
George