Saguaro West Signal Hill petroglyphs
— — a thousand years of weather, on one south-facing rock.
Not only on a wall.
“A short walk off the Bajada Loop Drive lifts you onto a low ridge of dark basalt boulders, pecked with spirals, deer, lizards, and one large concentric circle that aligns with sunset near the summer solstice. The Hohokam were here from about 450 to 1450 CE. The desert below is saguaro forest all the way to the Tucson Mountains.
Saguaro West Signal Hill petroglyphs, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Signal Hill sits in the Tucson Mountain District of Saguaro National Park, reached from the Bajada Loop Drive northwest of Tucson. The hill is a low pile of dark basalt boulders rising about 50 feet above the desert floor, with a short 0.3-mile interpretive trail to the summit. Its south- and west-facing rocks carry several hundred petroglyphs pecked into the dark rind, the work of Hohokam people who lived across the lower Sonoran Desert from roughly 450 to 1450 CE. The site is one of the most accessible Hohokam panels in southern Arizona.
The boulders are basalt darkened by desert varnish, a thin manganese- and iron-rich coating that takes centuries to form on exposed rock in the Sonoran. The Hohokam pecked through this rind with a hammerstone to reveal the lighter stone beneath, which is what makes the figures legible today. Common motifs include spirals, concentric circles, deer, lizards, anthropomorphs, and abstract geometrics. One large concentric circle on the summit is widely interpreted as a solar marker that aligns with sunset near the summer solstice.
Signal Hill is reached by the graded-gravel Bajada Loop Drive, accessed off Golden Gate Road. The trailhead has a small picnic area; the climb is 0.3 miles one way with about 50 feet of gain. Park entry is $25 per vehicle for seven days or covered by the America the Beautiful pass. The site is open from sunrise to sunset; touching, chalking, or tracing the petroglyphs is prohibited under federal law. Winter and spring are gentler; summer afternoons routinely exceed 100°F and the dark rock holds the heat.