Hike leader, Carol Brown said it the most succinctly: “The hike was a great success.” Participant, Patti Carey, who took the pictures that you see on this page, added:
“Just wanted to let you know that I absolutely loved the hike yesterday to Peña Blanca. I have posted most of the photographs, of which there was almost 200, on my Facebook page. There is one that I am attaching here that is absolutely my favorite. I did not see what was in the sky when I took this picture and was stunned when I saw it! Garrett, the BLM leader, was wonderful, and I would love to do the hike again just because there is so much information and so much to see. Thank you for posting that one.”
The top picture is the shot that Patti was referring to. Unintentionally she caught a Re-tailed hawk soaring above.
Below is the announcement by the National Historic Landmarks on their Facebook page (3/5/21) that Hueco Tanks is the newest National Historic Landmarks.
Take some time today to learn about one of the nation’s newest National Historic Landmarks: Hueco Tanks! Located in El Paso County, Texas, within the arid Chihuahuan Desert, Hueco Tanks is the largest of the Jornada Mogollon pictograph sites both in terms of archeological material and the abundance of Jornada-style rock art at the site. The Jornada Mogollon people lived in the Southwestern U.S. about 1,800 to 550 years ago in what is now New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and northern Mexico. The site contains the largest concentration of painted mask pictographs in North America. The Jornada-style rock imagery at Hueco Tanks represents an apex in the development of Jornada imagery and is ancestral to the katsina belief system still practiced among Puebloan people today. Based on the rock art iconography, the site likely was a rain shrine for the Jornada Mogollon, and a focal point in their spiritual landscape or cosmoscape. Hueco Tanks is considered by archeologists to be one of the most significant archeological sites in North America for its spiritual, cultural, and artistic significance.