Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Hueco Tanks State Historical Park, El Paso, TX - Dec 11-12
This was our second visit here, the first being in Dec 2000. Texas State Parks are expensive ($14/night + $4/person/day) if you don't have a pass, but they are always well situated & well maintained.The site of this park is a large igneous mountain protruding from the surrounding flat desert.
Because the volcanic rock contains numerous hollows (huecos), prehistoric hunter-gatherers frequented this area, drawn not only by the water that collected here, but by the wide variety of plants & animals living off that water. These archaic people left rock art -- thousands of pictographs & petroglyphs scattered throughout the park. 
Among the most intriguing are masks -- drawings of exotic faces. We were able to visit rock art that we hadn't yet seen, and also return to some of our favorites.
The park is also a popular for rock-climbers. Because of the quantity & fragility of the rock art, there are numerous areas that are only accessible with a guide, and are off-limits to all climbing. Today's rock scramblers carry large pads (in case they fall) the size of beds on their backs, and it is quite a sight to see them hiking up the trails looking like some sort of alien creatures.# posted by Doug and Willie @ 5:39 PM 
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I am a so called rock scrambler...just to clarify: the beds on our backs are called crash pads and used as protection under the climb we attempt if a fall should occur. The type of climbing that we do is called bouldering...short intensive climbing that does not use any ropes, harness or gear except our sticky rubber shoes and chalk for our hands to keep them dry.
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# posted by 
: 9:03 AM
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