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.