Patagonia Lake State Park

Our first time at Patagonia and for sure, not our last. This park is beautiful and has just about everything you could want. There's water for swimming, boating, kayaking, trails for hiking and birds for Blue and I to enjoy. We drove the short distance today and had enough daylight to walk the park, see the marina and take one of the birding trails. And, Gary found this little guy along the shorline, so it is a great fishing lake too!

Kartchner Caverns State Park

We've been to Kartchner Caverns State Park on our last visit but did not have a chance to go into the caves, this time, we did. They are much smaller than the Carlsbad Caverns but full of active formations. The caves were discovered in 1974. The cave's existence became public knowledge in 1988 when its purchase was approved as an Arizona State Park. The caves were untouched by man prior to there discovery so extraordinary precautions were taken during its development to conserve the cave's near-pristine condition. They turn the lights on as you go into areas of the cave and turn off the lights behind as you pass. The only way to experience the caves is on the guided tour and photos are not allowed. This is a far cry from Carlsbad, good and bad can be said about the differences.
The campground is possibly the cleanest we have ever seen. We had a lot of space between us and the other 2 campers giving Blue several opportunities for long walks with some great dirt to flop down on and do the kitty swim in the sand. He also enjoyed several grass hopper catches and a few small tree climbs, lots of fun was had by all.

Rock Hound State Park, New Mexico

This is our second time in Rock Hound State Park. This is always a great time with nice hiking, some good rocks for the taking and this year, we drove the short distance and hiked the Spring Canyon trail for a beautiful view of the valley below. We enjoy Rock Hound with it's spacious sites and great views from every window. It was our place to celebrate Thanksgiving with a turkey breast, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. Blue loved the walks up and down the trail just behind our site. On our second evening a lone coyote sang his best song much to Blues dismay.

Hueco Tanks Pictographs

On our last day at Hueco Tanks we experience the guided tour, the only way to see the section of the mountains that contain the Tanks and many of the pictographs and artifacts left by the native tribes in the area. Sadly more recent visitors to the area have defaced many of the original paintings with graffiti. Even the Tanks (walled areas to gather rain water for livestock) damaged historic areas in the mountains.

It was a beautiful day and our guide was very informative. I was shocked to learn that the Maya and Aztec came this far north to trade for turquoise and even today, Maya gather for the solstice in one of the caves we were able to see. We saw many of the masks and paintings that the area is famous for.

Hueco Tanks State Historic Site

Hueco (sounds like Waco) means hollows. The park sits just east of El Paso TX and is a hot spot for locals which can make it a difficult place to book. due to the historic aspect of the park the number of people camping here and hiking the rock formations is limited through the state park system. It is easy to get into the park on Monday and Tuesday as they have no guided hikes through the large restricted area.

I get ahead of myself however, to understand the historic part of the park you need to understand how it was formed. The rocks were formed beneath the earth’s surface 34 million years ago, as magma pushed up into the older limestone formations and then cooled. Weathering process eroded the overlaying limestone and sculpted the now-exposed igneous rock into it’s present form. The hollows in the massive granite-like formations capture or direct rainwater to create a moist environment. The rock provides shelter, shade and pockets of fertile soil which create micro-habitats that support life. From plants to animals, even freshwater shrimp can survive in an area of the Chihuahuan deserts hostile climate.

Were there is water, plants and animals, there are humans from the ice age to today. Throughout the rocks there are images recording hunters-gathers from 10,000 years back, the Jornada Mogollon, Kiowa and Apache, each with their own style of record keeping. The park is famous for the Mogollon Mask pictographs. Many areas of the park are by guided tour only with many displays of pictographs, pottery shards and stone tools left from the previous residence. Later this became a stop over for the Butterfield Stage which carried passengers and mail between St. Louis and San Diego.

For us, this is a 2 day stop to enjoy the rock formation which remind us of the City of Rocks in NM on steroids. Blue is very happy with our large campsite that is well removed from the rest of the campground. We will have a nice meal tonight and even get to watch some TV given our close proximity to El Paso. We managed a quick hike after settling in before a much needed rain took over. You’ll see that many of the smaller tanks we found are empty of water. We chased a flock of Quail as we climbed the rocks and noticed several shelters scattered in the rocks to stop and have lunch. I’m interested to see how the tanks look after the rain tomorrow and maybe sit in one of the shelters to each our lunch.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park, a great place hike

With the purchase of our National Parks pass we always try to see the parks that are along the way to our final destination and they never disappoint. In fact, Guadalope National Park should be on everyone's short list, especially if you like to hike a diverse mountain region. This area was spared the fires but it still was hard hit by the droughts in the South West. We were lucky to travel on two of the ranger guided hikes and thrilled with the level of knowledge of both rangers. Michael was our guide for the McKittrick Canyon hike that took 4 hours and had stops at Pratts Cabin, the Grotto and Hunter Line Cabin. He was a wealth of information on the geological finds in the region formed 260 million years ago and the more resent history of the farms and inhabitants along the wash.
One would never guess looking at the bluffs that they were formed by an ancient tropical ocean which covered Texas and New Mexico. We all enjoyed the fossils embedded in the lime-stone rocks along the journey. We also witnessed the traces of a cougar kill that happened that morning. The big cat drug the mule deer kill almost 1/2 mile along the trail near the visitor center and up into the bluffs. Just a short distance further down the trail we found the Cat scat that told us this big cat was here a short time before we were.
The small group of 6 had a wonderful time and we became friends quickly. Best of all, the canyon was in full fall color and the day was perfect for hiking, warm, but not so hot that you would get winded.
The following day we walked to Devil’s Hall with Ranger Michel. She was a wonderful hiking master with excellent knowledge of the terrain, plants and natural history. This was a windy day and not as sunny but still a good day for hiking. Hell, lets face it, any day you can get out and walk for 4 hours is a good day! Blue missed us but we enjoy these beautiful days outside as much as we can. I guess we are still living the impending doom that we would experience back home in MN. We’ll get over it shortly.

On our last day we hiked the Tejas trail that took us high on the mountain to the south of the campground. As we climbed a Mule deer watched us. The ranger that we passed on the way down said that he saw she was watching us and on the other side there were 4 more watching him. After the previous days kill, I can understand why they keep tabs on movement in their territory. It was a great trail and the views from the top were spectacular!