Potrillo Mountains Wilderness - Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument

The cholla, which does well out here, has grown fat and happy with the winter rain and snow. Weeds are beginning to green up the red sands.
The walking is pretty easy on the softened soil despite all the black rocks. They only sink in a bit, instead of pushing back.  From the end of the cherry stemmed road we have headed out to the northwest. Crossing one larger arroyo with tan sand, low black cliffs and gray basalt bedrock, we climb up a  low ridge toward a pile  of contorted, lichen stained rocks that are remnants of a spatter cone, one of several that shyly stick up out of monotonous creosote flats. On the backside is a rat's nest of identically sized black and gray rocks.

 Jackrabbits and cottontails bolt only when we get very, very close.
 We reach the edge of the canyon I'm seeking in less than two miles.  I had scouted it out as the deepest box section in the West Potrillos, somewhere between 60- 80 feet, and it definitely seems to be at least that.  Up ahead  in the bends of the arroyo the black cliffs are pocked with small alcoves and caves.
 In front of us, it's a steep descent to the  bottom of boulders, sand and  gray bedrock. I slip a couple of times. Soon after I come across  a huge set of antlers, that seemed big enough to be from an elk, if we weren't close to a  hundred miles or more from elk country. I can't imagine such a huge deer surviving in such marginal terrain, but here is the proof.

 Below one of the several dikes of tilted gray rock water lingers. Bees buzz in a recess in the cliffs.  The caves and alcoves yield only dirt and the twigs of pack rat nests. Moving up and up, eventually the box shallows up into wide arroyo of sand, barely etched into the landscape. Dried grass blows on the banks.

 Clouds have pulled themselves across the sky. It seems a long walk back. The pale giants of Cox Peak and Mount Riley  are off to the east feeding off the low relief that surrounds them, to be giants.  A side by side ATV speeds along in front of us on the continuation of the road that penetrates the wilderness.We moved south toward a wide cinder cone perfectly divided by the breach of its crater, back to waiting vehicles.

Doña Ana Mountains- Summerford Mountain West

Megafauna rubbing

I  last explored this part of the Doña Anas long ago. I visited so many places, usually alone, and usually without taking photos, in the first  few years that I lived here, it's getting hard to remember  everywhere I've been before. This one was different. I had 3 photos of this site, taken with an ancient sub megapixel digital camera, but these days it had begun to feel like I had dreamed the whole thing. Feeling strongly for more than a year that I needed to reconnect with its energy, I had put the trip on this winter's to do list.
 At the end of the hike in Cleofas Canyon, I told the group I had been with I wanted to do more exploring ( it was only 2:00 PM ) and said goodbye.
 

I headed north out of Cleofas, driving up and down on the road  that was winding like the dry streams it was crossing.  After several miles I turned toward the east on an even more  narrow up and down track that stayed on a slim ridge. I parked at a turnaround near an ancient fence. The gate was down on the ground but road on the other side was nearly invisible.
 Now the dream began. Bouncing through pale grass, past monzonite boulders of washed out orange and gray. Stepping on  stones down in the ravine, running  straight into a low growing cactus concealed by tar bush, I brushed and pulled the obvious thorns from my jeans and continued on with the remainder dangling from legs inside my jeans.

The sun pressed  down with an intensity that belied the February date on the calendar. It dried and burnt my lips. I only had my cap, not the sombrero, so I knew my face, ears and neck would be burned too when it was all over.
 I crossed the wash and soon after began finding petroglyphs and the searching continued of every boulder, and every group of boulders big, bigger and biggest, high and low, over, under and through. Finding more and more panels that I had no recollection of, or had never seen in the first place, I searched for the ones I had  photographed but only found one of the three.


Pictographs, red and white lines and zig-zags appeared as well on the curving undersides of boulders sheltered for hundreds, if not thousands of years.


A deep mortar and shallow cupules in granitic rock, which I did remember seeing, presented themselves also.
 

One piece of pottery lay in the sand on the bank of the wash.  A side by side, 4 person ATV plowed up through the thick sand of the wash, but didn't notice me as I watched a short distance away. I finally had to really call it, and, hard as it was began trekking back  to the blue truck.
 Two hours had not been enough time and I'm sure I didn't see all this place has to offer, but I didn't want to be negotiating the sub-standard roads out here in the dark.

Magic views behind me,  I drive home happy with ancient electricity sifting through my bones.

NOTE: This hike is on NMSU's Chihuahuan Desert Rangeland Research Center land which is technically not open to the public, although many people access the area mainly for biking, shooting and motorized recreation. Please treat the area with respect. If you see other's trash, take the time to pick it up. Do not drive off of well-established roads, or ride of off well established trails. Use only during daylight hours. The Doña Ana Mountains are a treasure in our own backyard. Be careful to conserve their natural and cultural values.

Broad Canyon Wilderness, Organ Mountains - Desert Peaks National Monument - Coyote Canyon tributaries

Two winter walks in small canyons that come into Coyote from the south. Looking at cliffs, bedrock and boulders. Finding precious shade in the deep channels carved in the rocky soil. Eating harissa sardines while the dogs cool off.

Walking along with the red outcrops on the Ward Canyon Fault.

Packrat nests of rocks and sticks between gray boulders,  with wild tobacco, bright, bright green growing in the shade.

 A deep hole, in the biggest one, a foot across, still holding a foot of cold water.

Eight deer, move, stop and watch still, then move over the low north facing  ridge through the pale winter grass.

 Footprints in the gray and black sand. My own, still there from two weeks before.

 A wicked drive on an untested road, wheels spinning in four wheel drive. Stopping and looking at several  crossings but always continuing on. . .

Warm, warm blue sky January days.

  Sunk down in deep braid channels, broom bristle grass growing above my head.

Rusty cans in the gravel.

 Hundreds and hundreds of ducks settled in the shallow water behind the dam at Coyote and Silva take flight at our  arrival. Swirling, weaving, black swarms against the pale sky.

 Following a fence in Lloyd Well Canyon, a wide wash.

 Hackberry trees in the deepest corners.

 Desert willow roots drawing water waiting.

Always looking for signs of ancient peoples in this wide gentle valley that seems so right.

Finally, finding, on the last part of the day.