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.