Broad Canyon Wilderness - Hersey Place, Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument

                                         

Broad Canyon on the left

Bell Top Mountain in the distance

I had been wanting to investigate the large Lloyd Well Mesa (my name for this nameless feature) for some time, but when the Broad Canyon Wilderness was established, the desire receded as the ability to drive up close to it vanished when the "road" in there (one of the least savory driving experiences on OMDPNM) was closed. It was only recently that I realized that starting from the Hersey Well on Broad Canyon provided a viable option with a shorter trek. 

Lloyd Well Mesa will have to wait for another day. This past Sunday (2/6/22) we went up onto what I'm calling Hersey Place Mesa which is just to the north of Lloyd Well Mesa across a large tributary canyon of Broad Canyon. I was thinking there could be some archaeological evidence up on top because of its nearness to Broad Canyon and Hersey Spring ( which I'm speculating flowed in pre- historic as well as historic times until  starved of its water by the well).

We followed a cow path up to the top, where there wasn't much to find save a few chunks of obsidian. It was nice and easy to walk around a bit on the flat expanse of gray volcanic ash derived rock paved with rocks of deep rusty brown, but eventually we made our down into the aforementioned side canyon. It  had some nice cliffs and bedrock, but no artifacts of ancient peoples that we could find as we searched the benches along its sides.

Eventually we got to the confluence with Broad Canyon and started heading west toward the cabin ruins of Hersey Place. Just about the time I was thinking that the place where we will probably find  some pottery sherds will be close to the old homestead, Andrea bent down and picked up a good sized piece, and shortly after I found a smaller one.  Perhaps the Herseys though the best place to build  was right where the ancients liked to make their camp too.

The stout stonework of the two room cabin was wonderful, but also almost all that remains, besides a few tin cans. We wondered why there seemed to be no doorway from the one room to the other, but could only speculate that perhaps one was for animals.

 It had been lovely, warm, blue sky day for most of our hike but as we drove home the country to the north of us was overcast, gloomy and looking like rain was real possibility.