Ladder Ranch - Las Animas and Seco Creeks

Las Animas Creek

North Seco Creek

Las Animas Creek

 Looking down to Las Animas

Sycamore

Padilla Homestead

Artifacts, grinding mortars at the Padilla Homestead

 North Seco Creek

 We visited the Ladder Ranch for the second time a couple of weeks ago (10/14/23). Andrea had given me another full day tour for my birthday. We first looked at areas where they are doing endangered species work with tortoises and prairie dogs that are the southern edge of the ranch. After switching to a side by side ATV at the ranch headquarters we then headed up Las Animas Creek. Initially, after crossing the creek, we went high above it on a very primitive road because of a very narrow box canyon. Eventually, though we descended back to the stream bottom. I have nothing good to say about the section of road that brought us down. It is not for the faint-hearted.

 Down in the valley were sycamores, cottonwoods, alders, and ash trees. Some were still bright green, others beginning to turn. The creek, a few inches of tea colored water, trickled in the middle providing for this miraculous riparian display. We visited the old Padilla Homestead with its crumbling adobe walls. Just a few yards from the stream, it was a desert scene with mesquite and thorny shrubs poised to engulf the place.

 

Further on we encountered areas where the bosque had burned in the Black Fire and got a look at a few petroglyphs as well.

 For the second half of our trip, I wanted to get over to Emrick Canyon which is tributary on the south side of South Palomas.That meant getting up and out of Las Animas on a "road" that was equally unnerving as the road that had brought us down. We then moved over on the high plateau to descend to first South Seco Creek and then on to its confluence with North Seco. The vast, grassy table lands of the Ladder Ranch are just spectacular to behold, but without time and right light of day, no photograph that I could take would do any sort of justice to the feelings of awe I get when encountering them. I refrained. In addition the prairie dog,  and the tortoises from early in the day before going up Las Animas, along our trek we saw wolves (in their pens), bison, turkeys, deer, red tailed hawks, lizards, a burrowing owl, scaled quail and many smaller birds that our guide Ken Stinnett pointed out to us.

In North Seco, there were springs, but no flowing stream. Narrowleaf cottonwoods were turning bright yellow against the sinuous gray cliffs of conglomerate. A beautiful scene.

NOTE: the Ladder Ranch is private property and not open to the public. You must arrange (and pay) for a tour  through Ted Turner Reserves.

Continental Divide WSA - Cottonwood Canyon, Indian House Canyon

Big pines in Indian House Canyon   

Boulders in Indian House Canyon

A while back I was tracing the route of the CDT over Pelona Mountains with my topo maps app when I noticed a canyon named Indian House Canyon. Well, of course that intrigued me with the possibility of, you guessed it, the existence of an ancient pre-historic, or at least a very old historic era ruin. Immediately I began planning this hike, using Cottonwood Canyon to access its tributary, Indian House Canyon . It went onto my list of hikes to do when staying at our property southwest of Datil. The list is basically, the many places that interest me for one reason or another and that fall within ( or at least very near) to a  circle with a 50 mile radius with our cabin on the north side of Horse Mountains at its center. The problem is the country is so vast and the roads oftentimes quite indirect so  that even though as the crow flies the distance from the cabin to the entrance to Cottonwood Canyon is only about 22 miles, it took over an hour to get there resulting in a considerably warmer temp than I had expected to start in.

Abandoned houses on the Bursum Road

Looking west to the Tularosa Mountains

 But get there I did and started my hike on the closed last remnant of road, up the canyon that looks to be the largest penetrating Pelona Mountain.  I've been a little spoiled lately hiking at Horse Mountain where  there doesn't appear to have been any significant livestock grazing for many years, so the cow patties, close-cropped vegetation, and  the over-grazing indicator shrubs were bit off-putting at first. It's still a big beautiful  valley with pine clad cliff sides, and oaks, walnut, grapevine and a very few narrow leaf cottonwoods in the riparian area.

Cottonwood Canyon

cottonwoods

Fall color from walnut trees

Walnut trees

 I motored on and on, passing Rail Canyon on my right. The canyon narrowed, but there was good path the whole way and sooner than I expected I was at the mouth of Indian House Canyon. This defile is a rough and tumble affair and was a moderate scramble for the half a mile or so up to Indian House Tank.

Boulder  field

Indian House Tank

 I continued a little further until the canyon forked.  I hadn't  found anything in the way of artifacts, or ruins, though I had checked many likely places. Both forks contained interesting looking cliffs, where perhaps a dwelling lurked, but it had been long way getting there, much longer than I'm used to these days as I was looking at around a 9 mile round trip. I turned around. Back in the big canyon I explored a little farther upstream hoping still to maybe find some kind evidence of ancient Native Americans utilizing these canyons, but nothing obvious was forthcoming. Heading back to the trailhead, I was a little disappointed, but happy to be exploring a new stomping ground anyway.

I had seen bear and elk scat on the trail, but the mammals I saw were much smaller: squirrels and chipmunks. Sparrows in numbers flitted along in front of me, and in the deciduous trees kinglets bounced from branch to branch. It was good hike and great day.