Peña Blanca- Organ Mountains Wilderness

It's been many years since I visited Peña Blanca. I didn't have a blog about  it until now. If there are any pictures of those earlier trips, they might very well have been taken with a film camera, because I can't even find any from a sub- megapixel digital one I used  way back when.
 I've been out in the area  quite a few times passing by on the way to other adventures, but a few weeks  ago I just decided to make our monthly LCPS Wellness Hike to Peña Blanca. I'm glad I did.
 We parked at the trailhead, where there is now a ribbon and  " NO VEHICLES" sign across the road that would normally be driven right up to Peña Blanca. The Sierra Vista bike trail which is also right here is the boundary of the wilderness, while the road, which more sensibly should be the boundary, is within it. So, we walked the mile  and then began exploring the cliffs, alcoves, caves,  and boulders formed in the rhyolite tuff that almost seemed to shimmer in the winter morning light. There are a very few pictographs to see, lines and shapes in red pigment, in some of the shallow recesses, but the black images are charcoal drawings from more recent times.

 Our group of eleven had the place to ourselves, which was nice, and the whole area had the aura of being less visited than in the past. Or maybe we just got lucky. On a detached outcropping we found our first ancient grinding hole, and then just down the hill I found a few fragments of brown pottery.  Although I wasn't expecting to find any, in this relatively well travelled location,  earlier I had given my customary speech  about what to do if one were to find any: " look at it, and put it back."
  We had only gone about a mile and half when four of our group went back. I wished they had hung on for a bit longer to see the largest cave  with its numerous grinding holes, just a short distance away.
From there we headed north along the base the larger mass of layered volcanics, admiring the varied and unusual formations as we went. There was even a hole in the wall natural arch.



The going got a little thick through the creosote and thorny brush as we headed towards our turnaround point. We passed a mortarless rock dam and then finally stopped at small thicket of hackberry trees where a spring may have been, or perhaps seeps water out seasonally.

 After snacks, we headed out. I found two more larger pottery sherds as I walked. We found a very faint road which led us to the  road that took us the two miles back to the  parking area.

Rincon Hills-Johnson Spring Arroyo and vicinity

 We made two more trips out to the Rincon Hills over the last two weeks, which makes for a total of four this winter, trying to give this fascinating little area the same treatment I've given the equally overlooked ( as far as hiking goes) Selden Hills over the last few years.
 These two hikes both started from near the corral in Johnson Spring Arroyo. The last part of the drive is on an unmaintained dirt road that starts  off crossing the rail tracks, going under I-25 and then mainly stays in the deep sand of the arroyo itself. The first trip Andrea, Seamus, Nessie and I branched off from the rest of our group (friends, Eric Luschei,David and Nancy Soules and their dog Hank), leaving the  main canyon  to go very roughly up to saddle and then around some of the higher peaks and down into a very narrow, hidden little box canyon, that is the canyon just to the south of the Falls Canyon I visited last month,
 Along the way it was a bit difficult to manage our dogs who were more interested in pursuing cows, rabbits and couple of deer. The geology of this area, a complex mix of volcanic rocks, and sedimentary rocks derived from the volcanics, has a wide variation in colors and hardness. Reds, greens, purples, grays, pinks and even a blinding white are in the palette. Some crumble at the touch, while others are hard enough to form cliffs and fields of enormous boulders.
 We all also  noticed a wide array of nearly every kind of cryptocrystalline quartz: agates, jasper, chert, flint, chalcedony, with an equally  wide variety of colors of both groundmass and inclusions, practically everywhere we looked. We also found barite and manganese veins near an old mine and a few bits of a turquoise colored material near another excavation. Rock collectors will love this area, but be careful, a prospector who lives in a  trailer near the corral  may have active claims marked by rock cairns or PVC pipes.
 On the first trip, we had  to overcome several small dry waterfalls, one in such a narrow and dark spot it still held water at the bottom, on our way up to the top of the mesa. We then circled around, catching sight of  a big javelina dashing away at top speed as we went, and descended through boulders and past cliffs to re-join the main arroyo. All along, both our groups were searching for petroglyphs, but we found none.
 As our group got back to the vehicles,  we found out from the others after they had conversed with some of friendly locals that there was indeed rock art up the main arroyo. As it turns out we had just missed  it by hundred feet or so.
 On the second trip we ( just my friend David, Seamus and myself) headed right to where I speculated the petroglyphs would be. On the way we met  couple returning, we chatted a bit and then the man said he recognized my Scottie Seamus by both appearance and name. I introduced myself as the author of the Southern New Mexico Explorer blog, and he indeed was a follower telling me it had led him on many adventures. It's always nice meet someone who reads my blog right where there should be: out exploring our public lands. This was the second or third time this has happened. Shortly after the encounter we were at the petroglyphs right where I thought they should be on a big broken boulder in the middle of the canyon. Unfortunately  there wasn't many, and the few seem to be well known with visitors leaving behind campfires coals, broken glass and discarded cans, which is a bit worrisome.

 From there we marched up a rocky ravine similar to the little box from the previous week. It branched a couple of times and we stayed on the most traveled ( by cattle and wildlife) route.
On top of the mesa we decided to circle back to the north so we could see the abrupt transition from the mesa to the main canyon. This vast upland flats of sandy and ashy soils with little more than regularly spaced creosote bush for vegetation extends for miles to the north, bounded by lower ridges of the Caballos and the collection of volcanic peaks called Point of Rocks. It's broken only by a few small ridges and shallow canyons draining to the Rincon Arroyo.
A spare few  juniper trees  both live and dead indicate the trio of sandy washes that turn into to rocky defiles, below three dry waterfalls. Somehow the crazy old road ( now a jeep adventure route) weaves through them in its steep descent to the big branch of Johnson Spring Arroyo. I inspected all three looking for rock art and perhaps grinding mortars ( the rock certainly was suitable), but found none.


One did have  a cave area that we found after plunging through the  concealing  bare hackberry trees. Some of it was low ceilinged, but part was perfectly suitable for getting in out of the wind, cold or heat for large group of humans. It had natural skylight/chimney opening which seemed to make it even  more advantageous but we found no evidence that it was ever utilized.


 I went up above to see if I could see the opening from the top, but couldn't get to it safely.On the way I spied a rusty steel cable, attached to  a rusty steel post with a gear on top. I wondered if they were either lowering down or winching up less than capable vehicles the very steepest part of the road through here.  The cab of a  Sanford and Son vintage Ford pick-up at the bottom of the hill, was, perhaps, evidence of a failed operation of this sort from long ago.