For thousands of years, native people have visited these sacred desert mountains and still regard it as a sacred place. Some of the Huecos hold water year round and the rock walls hold thousands of pictographs, as well as historic and present day graffiti. Due to the damage done to the pictographs in the past, the park only allows 70 permits for self guided hiking, 60 of which are reservable, and 10 available first come, first served each morning at 8am. There are only 20 campsites in the park. I was only able to obtain a campsite reservation for Saturday and all of the 60 self-guided permits were already reserved.
My luck as always held out on my visit to Hueco Tanks S.P. last week. I spent Thursday hiking McKittrick Canyon at GUMO, then headed to Sunset Reef Campground, which is a free BLM site and got the last campsite around 4pm. Friday I did some exploring in the area and then headed to Hueco Tanks State Park, about 30 miles northeast of El Paso, Texas. I arrived around noon to discover about 8 vehicles parked outside the main gate to the park, with a ranger. Turns out they were all waiting for a day pass, but 2 campsites were available and the ranger let me pass. I registered for a campsite, had my name added to the day pass waiting list, viewed the mandatory orientation video, settled into my campsite, and at 2pm, the ranger stopped by my site and told me I had a day pass, so I could go hiking.
On Saturday I not only got a day pass but I was able to get a spot on the 3 hour, $2, ranger lead guided hike to view pictographs. The ranger guide was awesome. She had personal knowledge from tribal elders and was able to share some interpretations of the pictographs. I should mention that under the Park’s Management Plan, all tribal members are able to access all areas of the park, and are not counted as part of the limited visitors. For once it seems the government got it right and didn’t discriminate against the rightful owners of this scared land.
The park was a ranch before it was a state park and the ranch house is still in use as the orientation venue. There are also large earthen and stone dams still standing and maintained which were built by the ranch.
The park is also one of the premier bouldering areas in the country. Everyday you will see very fit individuals hiking up North Mountain, with bouldering crash pads strapped to their backs. There are also a few multi-pitch rock climbs in the park. Years ago, Nancy and I came here and did some climbing. My climbing and bouldering days are over, but I did do quite a bit of scrambling on North Mountain. I’m should I could still succeed on some of the easier bouldering problems, but I don’t think my body would handle falls on to the crash pads that well any more.
Glad you are out and about! No snow there!! Hopefully cover comes off in a couple weeks. Traded in Suby, getting new towed setup..
ReplyDeleteI've always wondered what that area looked like, thanks for the tour!
ReplyDeleteAs for the graffiti, it's so funny because NOT that we are OK spray painting and all that, but Jim and I always like to think about "what exactly is graffiti?" Isn't the old stuff graffiti too? Only now it's considered "historic" because it's old? How is that different from the stuff that's only a few years old?
Would the ancients who carved in rocks use spray paint if they had it back then? My guess is that anyone who felt compelled to mark up something like a rock would definitely have used spray paint, it's so much easier! Just something to consider and I swear we've never done it ourselves!
Where's an archaeologist when we need one? I'd love to discuss that with an expert.