A Walk on the Tablelands

The nearly level dirt area where we found the mortar stone, an obvious Native American camp site.

A Native American mortar stone. Try to imagine the scene here when it was getting the most use.

The First Humans to Visit Alta Meadow

I have to say, at this point the heat and the altitude had taken their toll, and I felt like I had been beat with a stick. Regardless, before making camp, we decided to leave our packs at the camp spot and headed down the trails a ways to see what else there may be out there. We found the trail and followed it as far as the eastern-most meadow before deciding there were no better camps than the one we had parked our packs in. Bear scat and multiple fresh bear trails convinced us we should return to our packs. Before we did, we made a discovery: coming out of the trees near the eastern meadows there is a large nearly barren dirt area with a few medium sized low granite boulders sticking out of the dirt. As we strolled the area off trail looking for that elusive better camp site, we passed one of the boulders and I looked and shouted, "Dave! Did you see what you just passed?". He looked and said, "Oh yeah!". It was a Native American mortar stone, with seven mortar holes. Obviously we were at the site of an Indian summer hunting camp, and judging from all the deer we had seen, it was a good spot. As a matter of fact, the deer practically lived in camp with us, keeping an eye on us in case we felt the call of nature, which they considered snack time.