Titanic Post

Yesterday, I took a short hike south of where I live along the old fault line where the basin meets the mountain. Hiking south, parallel to the Sacramento Mountains, I crossed many washes where water had flowed out of the mountains during the ice ages. It wasn’t icy then this far south, just huge amounts of rainfall. As this is a basin where surface water neither enters nor exits, a lake formed millions of years ago. There are also many fossilized plants and creatures from before the mountains were formed.
When humans first inhabited this area about 12,000 years ago they set up villages and camps around the water. You can still see traces of their presence. “Indian wells” where plants were stomped into a pulp and then into flour for food are spread out over the alluvial fans. I saw pottery shards left where they were broken in a careless moment. Flakes of flint where the men chipped out arrow heads and knives or reshaped broken pieces. Looking out to the west, I tried to imagine how different it would have looked to those ancient people. I wondered how they got along without Washington, DC.
Further south I found remnants of Europeans or, by the look of it, Americans after New Mexico attained statehood in 1912. I first saw a primitive wall that at first looked like it had been used as a corral. As this was just south of Mule Canyon, I thought it may have been for those unique critters. There was old rusty barbed wire (four twists between short barbs) laying spread about. Many little piles of rusty barrel hoops abandoned by the rotted wood that had held them in place. Then I found a rusted (everything was rusted) piece of iron pipe about fifteen feet in length with a water bib attached to it–sign of a more permanent presence camp. There would have been water in many of the canyons around here with tall grasses for cattle grazing. Broken glass was everywhere, some with old looking violet and green colors that I had seen in museums. Strewn about in a circle of about a hundred yards were many, many old empty cans, nails and other pieces of hardware.
I remembered reading that Cabeza de Vaca had crossed this basin sometime in the sixteenth century after being shipwrecked somewhere near the present site of Galveston, Texas. Good walk, I’d say. It’s not likely that he would have crossed this far north as these mountains do not invite crossing here. Still, I was on the lookout for an old Spanish helmet or breastplate.
Further on I started seeing traces of modern activity. Recently discarded beer cans, a condom, ATV tracks. From here down to the Old El Paso road there were hundreds of empty shotgun and rifle shells. The Ancient Ones were a lot neater than the late comers and I wonder what changed people so much.

Metal Bowl

You thought you were tough!

Bird Shit ca. 4-5 days old