Canyon of the Long Skinny Creature
Sunday, March 19th, 2023: Hikes, Indigenous Cultures, Lower Box, Society, Southwest New Mexico.
After last week’s false spring, our weather got cold and wet again. I’d done a midweek hike on a muddy trail and wasn’t up for any more of that.
And after last week’s Arizona pictograph hike, I’d done some more research on the “high desert” area along the border, a large, remote region I’d previously ignored. There weren’t any trails there, but there were some buttes I could probably bushwhack, and by chance I learned about a canyon with petroglyphs. It would require an overland approach in unfamiliar terrain, and I couldn’t actually tell if the canyon itself was passable, but I’d give it a try.
I expected the petroglyph hike to be short, so afterward I hoped to drive north to the buttes and get some real mileage and elevation in.
There was frost on my windshield when I left the house – really unusual for this time of year. And our windy season starts in March – we were forecast to get gusts in the 40s.
The sky was mostly clear with high clouds. It took me an hour to reach the turnoff onto the first dirt road – as usual my topo map had it mislabeled, so I wasted 10 or 15 minutes looking for it. Once on the right road, I passed a Fish & Game truck, then found the next turn, onto a winding, high-clearance ranch road that turned out to be in terrible shape, with dozens of washouts. That road took me over a low rise, then down into the broad alluvial valley of our famous river. The road was so bad I averaged less than 15 mph.
Then I reached the final turn, onto a dirt track that hadn’t been driven in a year or more. It was even worse than the previous one – there were parts I could’ve walked faster than I drove. But I continued, through an old wire-and-branch gate that had almost dry-rotted apart, until I finally reached a dry wash where the track completely disappeared.
My topo map showed a couple of major tributaries approaching the canyon from this direction. I was hoping this dry wash was one of them, and sure enough, I immediately found the tracks of recent hikers. They’d come down the wash from much farther east – like the vast majority of urban hikers, they were probably driving a Subaru or some other low-clearance vehicle that couldn’t handle the track I drove.
I figured it would be a little over a mile to the main canyon. I was walking in deep, dry sand, which is no fun, but at this latitude and elevation, I was surrounded by familiar plants – honey mesquite, catclaw acacia, and best of all, really healthy creosote bush – so I almost felt like I was back home in the Mojave. I had to keep slowing down – my normal pace doesn’t work in sand.
This tributary, cut through alluvial deposits, finally reached a bedrock layer of conglomerate where it tightened and dropped through a slot. Around a few more bends and I was at the main canyon.
The main canyon started shallow and wide, but as it twisted back and forth it soon got deeper, and I reached a broad central area featuring old cottonwoods, living and dead. Water appeared flowing on the surface, green with algae.
Past there, it began to feel more like the canyons of Utah, with tilted strata rising from underground, water running over sculpted bedrock, and finally a slot canyon, where I had to climb down several short pouroffs.
Past the slot canyon, I carefully picked my way across a long, flood-sculpted ledge and found myself at the edge of an overhang, looking down at a deep emerald pool.
The ledge ended in a sort of ramp that I shuffled down on my butt. And turning to look at the pool, I discovered the first petroglyph panel, in a niche of a boulder overhanging the water.
Walking down the canyon from the pool, I immediately saw another petroglyph panel at the base of an outcrop on my right. To my left, high above the wash, I spotted a big white petroglyph at the base of cliffs. And straight ahead was the river, muddy and racing along in flood.
I walked toward the end of the wash, but soon got bogged down in mud. So I began climbing the left slope toward the petroglyph I’d seen above. The surface was a sort of flaky, treacherous shale dotted with catclaw.
The first thing I noticed was that there were two layers of carvings, one ancient, patinated, and dim, and the other much more recent, in high-contrast white. Unfortunately I’d arrived at noon, and the sun was casting a shadow that divided the panel. So I ate lunch and waited for the shadow to move.
What I was most interested in was the left side of the main panel. There were two tall images in parallel – a sort of ladder, spine, or trunk with branches, and what looked like a long skinny lizard with the head of a bird wearing horns like a sheep. They were obviously designed together to convey a single message.
From my lofty perch, I watched hawks wheeling on thermals over the riparian corridor. This whole valley is a wildlife sanctuary and wilderness study area, and is known for its exceptional bird diversity. But the more time I spent up there, the more I noticed the lichen.
Finally I got the shadow and pictures I wanted, and made my way back down, to check out the smaller panel across the wash. It had the same two layers, likely separated by thousands of years. So-called “rock art” is mostly ignored by scientists, and relegated to amateurs, who divide it into regional and temporal styles. But indigenous people recognize it as writing, and the rock writing I’ve seen is a continuum spanning the West, sharing a common vocabulary.
A gale-force wind was blowing straight up the canyon as I started back. I had to lean into it.
The wind was a little less harsh when I turned off into the tributary wash. There, I began to pay more attention to the year’s first wildflowers.
When I finally reached the vehicle, I discovered I’d spent 3-1/2 hours on a 4-1/2 mile hike. That’s partly because I was walking in soft sand, which probably requires 50% more energy than walking on a hard surface. It’d also taken me an hour to drive 9 miles on those bad roads. So there was no time left for a hike in the buttes to the north. But I drove up there anyway, and found that my map again had the roads mislabeled, so I couldn’t find the one I needed.
I arrived home after being gone for 8 hours, most of which was driving. And as soon as I got out of the vehicle I could smell the creosote bushes, which had scraped my fenders and doors on that abandoned track. Best thing I’d smelled in months!
