Indian Grinding Rocks SHP (Chaw'se)

DATE: Sunday November 29, 2020
DISTANCE: 4.47km / 2.78 miles
ELEVATION GAIN: 121m / 397 ft.
TIME TAKEN: 1:45
INDIAN GRINDING ROCKS SHP (CHAW'SE)
AMADOR COUNTY, CA
STOLEN MIWOK LAND
SOUNDTRACK: The Melvins: Grinding Process

PHOTO ALBUM
MAP












It is a tradition in my family, or at least me and my brothers (and whomever else wants to tag along) to visit the Chaw'se Indian Griding Rocks State Historic Park between Pine Grove and Volcano, CA, on or near Thanksgiving, for an annual white guilt pilgrimage. I usually don't take too many photos, and I've never documented this as "heavy metal hike," but today our gang walked the entire trail system, something I'd never actually done before despite over 30 years of visiting the park, and I took photos for your enjoyment here.

First, we went off on the South Nature Trail, a short hike which I do pretty much every time. The beginning of this trail leads through some reconstructed cedar bark houses, and the main ceremonial roundhouse, which is still used by the local Miwok to this day. These structures are situated in a grove of massive old growth oak trees. The South Nature Trail goes on to cross a creek, and make a short loop through the woods, past the campground, and back to the visitor center. After completing this, we took the unprecedented step of also doing the NORTH Nature Trail. This first leads to the "environmental campsites" which are cedar bark houses that the public can actually rent out and camp in. How I had missed this all these years, I wasn't sure, but I thought about how fun it would be to camp and sleep in one of these
structures I had admired for so long.

There were lots of wild turkeys about, in the field and along the road on the way back too.

FURTHER READING
• Visit Amador: A nice introduction to the park
• All Trails: The usual Alltrails info and public commentary