Rio Bonito Petroglyph National Recreation Trail

A couple of years ago when we were renting a house in Ruidoso for a weekend in early May, I had wanted to do this hike our second morning there, but it snowed overnight and we opted out. It was probably for best, because the road down to the trailhead is probably one we wouldn't have wanted to tackle without four wheel drive, especially since on the previous day we had our fill of adventure driving over in the Capitan Mountains
 The morning was cloudy and cool, but it didn't feel like we were going get any early rain. We turned off of NM 220 into the BLM's Fort Stanton-Snowy River Cave National Conservation Area. The road down to the creek is mostly good but has three rough, very steep pitches which necessitate high clearance and under wet conditions most definitely four wheel drive. We parked and made our way down to the dual trailheads of this loop hike. We headed east first and soon found a boulder by the trail with a few petroglyphs. We then made our way down to the creek where a large boulder sits in the water; its upper half  deeply incised with numerous petroglyphs.

The creek was brown and running about a foot deeper than average flow I would guess due to the torrential rains the previous night. We  continued east on the trail and quickly came to a little bridge made of three logs strapped together with 2x6 planks nailed across them. It was a bit crooked, about four feet above the water level, had no hand railings and my wife wanted no part of it, so we turned around and headed in other direction for the western leg of the loop.
 One of the problems with this trail is it doesn't really spend very much time close to the stream with it's lush  greenery of cottonwood, willow and Russian olive trees. Instead, it climbs up on the benches above, threading through the junipers and dry-land shrubs.



Along the  way we found a flat rock with some cupules ( small grinding depressions) where there was a hand petroglyph on an adjacent boulder. Eventually we followed the trail back down to creekside where a small ravine comes in from the south. From there, the stream banks widen, and we strolled along toward an old adobe ruin in the distance. The ruin is not on public land, so we admired from a distance, and then crossed the bridge that was made for vehicles, which was infinitely preferable to my spouse.
 The loop turns back after the crossing, and even though we knew we had the log bridge waiting on the other end we continued on.
The trail goes up onto the rough mesa on the north bank, where we had occasional views of cliffs with alcoves and overhangs on opposite side.
I felt strongly that I would rather be down on the along the creek instead of up on the dry and shade free mesa where when the sun began to break through the clouds a bit it began to feel rather warm. I have a feeling the BLM most likely wants to keep people off of the creek perhaps because of cultural resources located there.  People do fish this stretch because we could use trails below, so I'm not totally sure why the trail  still has to go where it does. Nessie decided the optimal time to begin pulling really hard was when the trail descends very roughly down to a lower bench. Once down we worked  our way back to the petroglyph boulder we had seen at the beginning and where I could get  better picture of the goggle-eyed glyph on cliff behind it.

 Now we made our way the short distance to  the foot bridge. If my wife didn't want to cross it, we were headed back in the direction we had just come from. She didn't want to wade either. I crossed it once as a demo. There was one loose plank which was good to discover first before she crossed. I then began crossing with the dogs while she followed closely behind, We all made it and then hiked back to our 4Runner. This would be a fun place to return to and just explore without the trail. It also might be a fun place to come and try a little fly fishing in the spring or fall.