Pooped Puppies and Barking Dogs:

There are days when I think we are taking this fitness thing too far. Then there are days that I know we are. The past two days are a perfect example.

Near El Paso Texas is a small State Park, Hueco Tanks. It is only 860 acres and has campsites for 20 campers and only half a dozen of them would fit Arcturus, so we got lucky. The campground itself is somewhat unique. You get locked in at 6:00 P.M. and you are not allowed to leave the campground area until 8:00 A.M. the next morning. (They do allow for emergencies.) Each day you must register for touring the park, either the self guided area or the larger guide led area. Only 70 persons are allowed to be active in the park at one time. We were lucky again we were able to get a reservation for a guided tour. Here is a link to the official Texas Parks site.
The history of the place is very interesting, but I will let you read that for yourself. The park is in a level plain and there are three mountains within the park, North Mountain which is open for self guided tours and rock climbing of all sorts. South Mountain and East Mountain are off limits unless you are with a guide.

Here is how our two days at Hueco Tanks went:

Day 1: We registered for the self guided tour on the North Mountain. However, Judy thought we should get a bicycle ride in first. So we spent nearly two hours touring the rural roads around the state park. Now we are properly warmed up so off we go to explore the North Mountain. You can walk around the mountain on level ground all day long, but to really see it and to have a chance to see the ancient pictographs, you must climb the mountain. It is really a walk up climb on smooth rounded granite boulders. I was packing the GPS, so I have to be honest about this. Our highest point of the climb was only 110 feet above the general level ground. Now think about this, walking up the stairs in a ten story hotel can be taxing, but it is no real killer, right? We spent over three hours doing this, not once but several times. Hauling each other up onto boulders as big as cars tumbled helter skelter over this mountain. At one point we climbed up to one of our higher vantage point and ran into some youthful rock climbers. They call it “Bouldering.” It is the real thing that the gymnasium walls try to emulate with cute little hand holds bolted to a plywood wall. They find rock walls and try to climb them with fingers, toes and I suppose teeth if necessary and everything powdered with rosin. This cute young (18-20 ish) thing asks. “Are you lost?” “Oh, no,” I pipes up, “I have my GPS, I know exactly where I am.” What I didn’t tell her is we were making it up as we went and had no idea where we would go next, or how we would get back. I should also point out that Judy was not particularly happy with our route, but she perked up considerably when she spotted some hand rails across the rolling expanse of granite. The prospect of a proper trail was appealing. I figured that walking around this mountain was about like hiking on a small island in the San Juans. As long as you don’t get off the island by getting in the water you can hardly get lost. We slept well.

Day 2: Up early and pre-flighted Arcturus for immediate departure after the guided tour. We met Heinz, our guide, at 10:30 and started touring East Mountain. Heinz is 65 and does this several times a week, for fun! We didn’t climb as high as Day 1, but we clamored over boulders every where we went. Then many times we laid on our backs and slithered under house sized boulders to look at pictographs overhead and try not to think about what would happen if something slipped. Now what you see in the sheltered recesses of the North Mountain is “historic graffiti” from the 1800’s when the Butterfield State line had a way station here at Hueco Tanks. On the East Mountain we saw pictographs that are thought to be 6000 years old. The reason this spot was so important to all cultures that used it over the centuries was the water that collected in the depressions in the rocks. These are what are called “tanks,” and they are a natural phenomenon in the weathering of these granite mountains. The second days efforts extended over four hours and covered some five miles. We will sleep well again tonight!

So now we send our greeting from New Mexico where we have our barking dogs propped up.