Cabezon Country

Exploring the Cabezon region of the Middle Rio Puerco Valley

In the summer of 2020, I went in search of new places to photograph.  Even though I had lived in New Mexico for more than ten years, I knew very few places beyond the obvious.  I had visited Chaco Canyon, Bisti Bandlands, Valles Caldera, El Malpais, and Sandia Crest, among many others.  But I wanted to photograph somewhere different, somewhere further off the beaten path.  I especially wanted to find day-trip locations closer to Albuquerque.

Looking at the map, I noticed some interesting areas northwest of Albuquerque.  When I zoomed in, I found that most of these areas were “wilderness areas,” or “wilderness study areas.”  I did not know what this meant, but it certainly sounded photogenic.

On a beautiful day in July 2020, I hopped in my Honda CRV, and headed up the road towards Cuba.  As I turned off Highway 550 onto NM 279, I had low expectations.  The drive into the high desert was pleasant, but not particularly inspiring.  The unincorporated village of San Luis is typical of rural New Mexico, with a few abandoned adobe buildings worth photographing.  

In short order, I found myself driving through the perfect filming locale for an old western movie.  Cattle graze the arid plateaus, cholla cacti dot the landscape, twisted pinyon trees stand solitary watch.  As I drive along the easily navigable dirt roads, fascinating mountains come into view.  Some are sharp, with fascinating jagged ridges.  One resembles a giant sombrero.  Others seem to be lifted straight out of Monument Valley.  

The road rises to climb over subtle ridges and drops down through deep ravines.  Muddy water sometimes flows in a broad streambed.  I knew I had stumbled upon a region rife with photographic potential, but also one that I would never truly capture to its credit.

The landscape here is both vast and intimate.  It is the domain of cattle ranchers, but was once part of the Chaco Canyon empire.  Colors are muted browns, reds and greens, but blown out in the harsh sun.  Side roads, increasingly rocky and rough, stretch impenetrable to my Honda in all directions. 

Mesas small and large create a wilderness city skyline in the distance, while fenceposts and windmills rise above the plains closer to the road.  The soil is dry and cracked in places, yet peppered with tufts of brown grazeable grass in others.

The Rio Puerco Valley is rich in history, tracing back to the dinosaurs of the Jurassic.  Eons later, Ancestral Puebloans made this region home, followed by Navajo and modern Puebloans.  When the Spanish invaded and conquered this region, Hispanic settlers began ranching and farming the valley.  After the Mexican-American War, American setters from the east joined them, bringing stagecoaches and eventually automobiles.  The history here is so complex that I will likely never fully appreciate its scope or significance.  

This evolving photo essay is my small attempt to photograph and understand this fascinating dissonant country of the Rio Puerco Valley.

Comments and suggestions are welcome!  

See the "Talk to me" section at the bottom of this page.

What is a wilderness study area?

The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency of the US Department of the Interior.  It is tasked with overseeing 247.3 million acres, which is one eighth of the our nation’s landmass.  BLM land is managed for both private and public uses.  Permits are provided for livestock grazing as well as oil and gas extraction.  Per the BLM website, Wilderness Study Areas serve “to identify areas for Congress to consider for addition to the National Wilderness Preservation System.”  BLM Wilderness Areas include “wild and natural landscapes ranging from alpine to desert, forest to grassland, and other environments of the United States. Wilderness protects the habitat of numerous wildlife species and provides a source of clean water. It has long been used for science and education, providing sites for field trips, study areas for student research, and serving as a source of instructional examples.”  Wilderness and Wilderness Study Areas have slightly stricter regulations regarding access and hiking than other BLM lands.  Be sure to check the BLM Wilderness webpage for more information. 

The Rio Puerco value contains many wilderness and wilderness study areas, notably Empedrado Wilderness Study Area, Ignacio Chavez Wilderness Study Area, Chamissa Wilderness Study Area, and the Ojito Wilderness.

Volcanic Necks

New Mexico is literally a hotspot for geologists.  The Rio Grande Rift slices through the state north to south, with countless extinct volcanoes poking up from the desert floor.  Some of these are massive, such as Mount Taylor, while others are tiny and barely perceptible.  Cabezon Peak is the most prominent volcanic neck in Rio Puerco Valley.  Two and half million years ago, this volcano erupted, with lava later pooling in the volcanic cone.  This lava cooled into a plug.  Over the eons, the surrounding material eroded, leaving the lava plug to stand monolithic.  My favorite volcanic neck in this region is Cierra De Guadalupe.  Check out this great paper on the “Volcanic Geology of the Rio Puerco Necks” by R. Bruce Hallett. 

Cierra De Guadalupe (and cow)

Source: The geology of the Puerco River Valley Volcanic Necks by the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science

Additional information: Widdison, Jerold Gwayn. "Historical Geography of the Middle Rio Puerco Valley, New Mexico." New Mexico Historical Review 34, 4 (1959). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmhr/vol34/iss4/3

Ghost Towns

Cabezon

The ghost town of Cabezon is supposedly one of the best preserved in New Mexico.  Cabezon sits on private property, behind a locked gate.  At first, I was annoyed that the owners lock up this treasure.  

But then I read Philip Varney’s account of Cabezon in his book New Mexico’s Best Ghost Towns published by UNM Press.  It appears that vandals sometimes sneak into the town to take artifacts and damage the buildings, and the few residents who still live there are fighting back by restricting access.  Historical preservation is something that I can appreciate, so I applaud their efforts to stem the tide of rude people.  I just wish that vandals did not have to ruin it for the rest of us, but such is our society.

Originally named La Posta, Cabezon became a stagecoach stop on the route from Santa Fe to Prescott, Arizona.  Richard Heller came to Cabezon in 1888 to run the general store and raise livestock.  He eventually owned 2,000 cattle and 10,000 sheep, becoming quite rich.  He helped to construct La Iglesia de San Jose, the small church that still remains in Cabezon.  By 1920, Cabezon boasted 250 residents.  But in 1934, the US Government purchased a nearby landgrant, and began restricting access on the badly overgrazed landscape.  A dam on the Rio Puerco broke, ending agriculture in the region.  Heller died in 1947, and the town was abandoned shortly thereafter. 

Source: New Mexico’s Best Ghost Towns by Philip Varney.

Guadalupe

Further down the road from Cabezon lies the ghost town of Guadalupe.  Like Cabezon, most of it lies on private property.  Still, there are a few interesting buildings you can see along the road.  Alternately known as Ojo del Padre and Miller, Guadalupe’s post office was first opened in 1898.

The building photographed here is on the left-hand side of the road as you drive south.  It was built in 1905, and served as the home and store of Juan Córdova.  The Córdovas lived on the top floor, with a store on lower level.  The store also doubled as a dance hall for the community.  In the 1920’s, this community was home to nearly 350 people.  However, in the 1930’s drought hit the region, and in 1930 the log-and-brush dam on the Rio Puerco failed, and was not rebuilt.  As in Cabezon, the village then started to fade away.  The school, post office and store closed in 1958.

Nasario García grew up in Guadalupe, and his recollections formed the basis of the documentary film “Nasario Remembers the Río Puerco.”  I have not been able to find a version of this film streaming or on DVD, but I would love to see it!  JMHouse has a great blog post on Nasario, with several great stories that are not included in the film.

Nasario also published his memoirs, “Hoe, Heaven, and Hell: My Boyhood in Rural New Mexico” which is available at Amazon and other booksellers. 

Source: Music on the Wind: Guadalupe, New Mexico.  City of Dust blogpost from January 2018.

San Luis (La Tijera)

According to a comment by Lorraine Stubblefield on the City of Dust facebook post, San Luis was once known as La Tijera and also Dominguez.  San Luis still has a beautiful little church, San Luis Gonzaga, which is used for weddings & funerals.  The town was likely settled between 1870 and 1880, with the first marriage recorded in 1880.  “The site of … San Luis, NM is also in the proximity to the San Joaquin de Nacimiento merced grants to Joaquin de Luna and 35 other petitioners on 20 July 1769 by Governor Pedro Fermin Medinueta (Stubblefield).”

San Luis is the easiest ghost town to visit, since it is on the paved road not far from US 550.  

Sources and links

New Mexico’s Best Ghost Towns by Philip Varney.

Music on the Wind: Guadalupe, New Mexico.  City of Dust blogpost from January 2018.

“Hoe, Heaven, and Hell: My Boyhood in Rural New Mexico” by Nasario García

Ghosts of the Rio Puerco, by Nasario García.  New Mexico Magazine, December 2017. 

The Grass was Greener, by Kate Nelson.  New Mexico Magazine, July 2021.

Homes on the Range, by Kate Nelson.  New Mexico Magazine, July 2021.

Historical Geography of the Middle Rio Puerco Valley, New Mexico, by Jerold Gwayn Widdison.  New Mexico Historical Review, 1959.

From La Tijera to San Luis: Farm and Faith on the Rio Puerco, by Susan E. Diggle and Louis A. Hieb.  Agricultural History, Spring 2004.

What movies were filmed in the Rio Puerco Valley?

So far, I have only been able to find two movies filmed in this area. 

My Name is Nobody is a Tonino Valerii Spaghetti Western based on an idea by Sergio Leone.  It starred Henry Fonda as aging gunfighter Jack Beauregard and Terrance Hill as Nobody.  The opening scenes are shot in the ghost town of Cabezon, with Cabezon Peak in the background.  It was releases in 1973 and is available to stream on Amazon Prime.  In addition to Cabezon, the film was shot at Acoma Pueblo, Mogollon, the mission of San Esteban Del Rey, and at White Sands.

The Hired Hand is a Peter Fonda (the son of Henry Fonda) film released two years prior, in 1971.  It stars Peter Fonda as saddle tramp Harry Collings and Verna Bloom as his long-suffering wife Hannah.  There are a number of scenes that were filmed in and around Cabezon, as well as at White Sands, Chama, Santa Fe, Alamogordo and Espanola.  It streams on YouTube, though I don’t know if it is fully authorized by the film company.  While My Name is Nobody was somewhat successful, The Hired Hand was generally considered a flop.

If you know of any other productions filmed here, I would love to hear about them.

Guadalupe Ruins

Driving through the Chamissa Wilderness Study Area to Guadalupe Ruins, you first come across two impressive arroyos.  Both of these gullies are steep and deep.  When it rains, these arroyos flood and stream over the road with significant force.  This flooding sometimes cuts into the road surface, leaving it impassable to most vehicles.  When I first drove through the arroyos, the roads were barely passable to my Honda.  The second time I came through, it was not passable at all.  The third time, the road had been grated and I cruised right on through.  When you visit Guadalupe Ruins, I suggest you stop at the top of the arroyos (you will notice the road starting to drop precipitously), and then walk down to look at the road condition.  There’s not much (if any) room to turn your car around at the bottom, and it’s fairly steep for most cars to reverse all the way back to the top of the ravine.  

Parking close to the base of Guadalupe Mesa
Closeup view of the volcanic seam

After the second arroyo, you will drive across a beautiful plateau, with amazing views of the volcanic necks.  At the south end of that plateau, you will come up a steep rise in the road, with a cattle guard at the top.  As you crest the ridge, immediately at the top only meters to your left, rises a stuffing dramatic small mesa, with a volcanic seam running along its base.  Pictures do not do this mesa justice (at least, my pictures do not).

Guadalupe Mesa itself is sandstone, rising nearly 200 feet with sheer walls on all sides.  Immediately to the left of the mesa (as you look at it from the road) a dramatic black volcanic seam heads off into the valley.  The black volcanic rock is a stark contrast to the light brown sandstone mesa.  The seam, like the volcanic necks, is a remnant of Mount Taylor eruptions.

At the top of Guadalupe Mesa sits the eastern-most outlier of Chaco Canyon.  Chaco is an amazing world-class historical site.  If you have never visited, add it to your must-see list.  From AD 900 to 1150, Chaco Canyon was the hub of a massive civilization that spread throughout portions of Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. 

Roads connected the Chaco communities, including Chimney Rock in Colorado, Aztec Ruins near Farmington, and eventually Mesa Verde National Park.  There are many great lectures about the history of Chaco Canyon posted on YouTube.  If you’re a fan of American history, this is a great culture to explore.  The residents of Chaco were once referred to as Anasazi.  Because early white settlers did not believe the Pueblo Indians who live in this region, they thought the Anasazi were be a vanished culture.  Today, we know that the Chacoan people left the canyon, they did not just vanish.  They spread throughout the southwest and founded many Pueblos, which remain vibrant and important communities today.  The term “Anasazi” has been replaced with “Ancestral Puebloan,” which is obviously a more accurate description.

To reach the top of Guadalupe Mesa, follow the signs and the trail that snakes up the right-side of the mesa (when viewed from the road).  The trail is not particularly difficult, but if you have mobility challenges, it might not be the best trail for you.  Likewise, if you don’t like heights, then you may want to take a miss on this one. 

When you arrive at the top of the mesa, you will encounter Guadalupe Ruins.  This pueblo was the eastern-most outlier of Chaco Canyon.  In its prime, it contained at least 39 rooms and 7 kivas.  From the heights of Gaudalupe Mesa, you can see miles across the valley in all directions.  “Curiously, most Chaco Outliers are located north, west, and south of Chaco Canyon, while Guadalupe stands out nearly alone in its eastern placement in the Chacoan World and may have been positioned to take advantage and possibly control of a migration and trade route between the San Juan Basin and the Rio Grande, where seven of New Mexico's 19 modern Pueblos are located.” (BLM website). 

This is an amazing location to imagine the past.  You will likely be the only person on the mesa, and the valley surrounding you will be populated with a few scattered cows and the occasional horse.  If you do a bit of reading about Chaco and Guadalupe Pueblo before you arrive here, your imagination will be unfettered by distractions.

Photographers love sunrise and sunset.  If you’re planning to visit during those times, I would suggest car-camping rather than driving those roads at night.  If this is your plan, I suggest you check with the Farmington BLM Office on camping regulations before you go.  I have not spent the night there (hence, I have no golden hour photographs from this area), but I hope to do so in the future.

Like most of the Rio Puerco Valley, the beauty and drama here will be most appreciated by people with imagination and a bit of context.

Arroyos

An arroyo is a dry stream bed that typically flows only after a good rain.  An arroyo can cut more than 60 feet into the desert floor, and can span more than 100 feet across.  The walls of arroyos are typically sheer.  Growing up in Kansas, I was completely unfamiliar with arroyos before my first visit here.  There is continuing debate about the formation and expansion of arroyos, but research points to overgrazing and climate change as major contributors.  Here are three interesting takes on arroyo formation: The Arroyo Problem in the Southwestern United States by Brandon J. Vogt; Date of Arroyo Cutting in the American Southwest and the Influence of Human Activities by Scott B. Aby; and The Rio Puerco Arroyo Cycle and the History of Landscape Change by Scott Aby, Allen Gellis and Milan Pabich.


The Rio Puerco was a broad flood plain until the late 1800s.  Erosion caused by climate change, ranching and farming has resulted in the deep arroyos we see today.

Not to be confused with arroyos, acequias are “communal irrigation systems that have sustained communities, culture and birdlife for centuries” (Climate Change Puts New Mexico’s Ancient Acequias to the Test, Audubon).  Acequias are drainage canals that divert river water to create agricultural areas.  They are present throughout the Rio Grande watershed.

Stagecoach Stops

In 1876, if you wanted to travel back east from the capital of the Arizona Territory (Prescott), you first needed to get to the terminus of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad near Santa Fe.  This journey through remote desert and foreboding wilderness is 380 miles as the crow flies.  Before the Atlantic and Pacific Railway line arrived in Prescott, making this trek obsolete, a lesser known stagecoach route filled the void.  From 1876 to 1882, John A. Walsh ran the Star Line Transportation Company between Prescott and Santa Fe. 

According to a 1879 ad in the Weekly Arizona Miner, the route took four days and traveled “by way of Camp Verde, Beaver Head, Pine Springs, Brigham City, St. Joseph, Little Colorado Horsehead Crossing, A.T., Fort Wingate, and Intermediate places to Santa Fe, N.M.”  According to the ad, the route was $50 cheaper than any other route east of the day. 

There seems to be little doubt that this route included a stagecoach stop in Cabezon.  On Google Maps, there is also a stagecoach stop marked 14 miles to the west (as the crow flies).  The satellite view certainly suggests a site that could have been a stagecoach stop along this line.  However, I have no evidence for this, other than the name on the Google Map.  A friend and I tried to get there recently, but the road became too difficult for our vehicle.  At some time in the future, we plan to rent a sturdier SUV to get there. 

According to a story in the Santa Fe New Mexican (which I was able to access without a subscription once, but which I cannot now get to), there was also a stop on the route called “El Dado.”  According to the story, “It seems the station had a keeper, known to be a tough hombre. He wore two guns and chewed tobacco.  In one end of the building, he operated a small saloon. Whenever passengers alighted from the stage, the keeper demanded that they roll dice, double or nothing, for their drinks.  No one dared to challenge him, so they rolled as ordered … and lost every time. The dice were loaded.  Soon the station was known locally as ‘Loaded Dice,’ but after a while simply as ‘The Dice’ (Spanish ‘El Dado’).”


According to this article, the station was located southwest of Mount Taylor, between Cabezon and Fort Wingate.  However, that seems a bit out of the way for a direct route between the two places.  There is another place on the Google Map called “El Dado Springs,” which is 12 miles from the previously mentioned stagecoach station.  I don’t think this is the same El Dado, but I do wonder if the El Dado Springs was a watering hole along the stage route.  I have not yet visited these springs.

Traveling on a stagecoach may have been the best option available, but it was not a comfortable venture.  The coaches were small, and they were often packed shoulder to shoulder.  Travelers would not have had access to frequent baths, so you can imagine the smell.  The roads were dusty and bumpy, and sometimes muddy.  There is no tree cover in this area, so the heat would have beat down on the stage.  If there were no breeze, it would have been stifling.  Stagecoach holdups were not uncommon (though at least one of these is more legend than fact).  The food and accommodations at the stations along the way were limited.

There is an amazing account of the Prescott to Santa Fe stagecoach line in True West Magazine, written by Johnny D. Boggs.  It is well worth a read, and maybe even a vacation following much of the route.

I am not entirely certain, but I think this is the stage coach station.  This was taken from a flyover in March 2024.  I am eager to visit here, but my vehicle is not quite up to the rough roads.

What is a land grant?

From the Albuquerque Historical Society Website:

“The Spanish king or his representatives conveyed land to individuals, groups and towns through a system of land grants, or mercedes, in order to promote settlement on the frontier. Spanish authorities used the system in Florida, California, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. There were more than 150 community land grants totaling 9.3 million acres awarded by first the Spanish and then the Mexican governments. 

There were two kinds of grants – the private grant given to an individual, who was required to live on the land and improve it for four years before receiving title, and the grant to settlers for a new town. Members of the community grant could own a small piece of farmland along an irrigation ditch, but most of the land was held in common for grazing, wood cutting or other uses.

In New Mexico, land grants were issued to encourage settlement, to reward patrons of the Spanish government and military officers, and to create a buffer zone between Indian tribes and populated areas.

Spain also issued land grants to several Indian Pueblo groups who had occupied the areas long before Spanish settlers arrived. In the Albuquerque area the Spanish governor awarded grants to the Pueblo de Sandia and the Pueblo de Isleta. The Spanish also enforced the Four Square League law, which required that the land surrounding an Indian pueblo be allotted to that pueblo for one league in each direction from the pueblo.  No grant could cover this land. This set up political and ethnic boundaries for the Pueblo Indians and helped sustain Pueblo cultures.”


The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War, and provided for US recognition and protection of property rights created by Spanish land grants.  “It originated from the 1841 Beaubien-Miranda Land Grant that Governor Manuel Armijo made to Charles Beaubien and Guadalupe Miranda (US Government Accountability Office).”  There were 295 such land grants in present day New Mexico.  Approximately 52% of these were community land grants.

Check out this fascinating September 2001 GAO report on New Mexico’s land grants.

Continental Divide Trail

The Continental Divide Trail (CDT) extends 3,000 miles from Chihuahua, Mexico to the border with Alberta, Canada.  The trail is not yet complete, with sections requiring hikers to walk along roads.  The trail is often temporarily rerouted to avoid forest fires.  Along with the Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian Trail, it is considered to be part of the triple crown of hiking in the US.  Thru-hikers are those who attempt to complete the entire trail in one go.  Between 1994 and 2021, more than 1,000 hikers completed either the Appalachian or Pacific Crest Trails, compared to only 150 completing the CDT.

The official route of the CDT in New Mexico is 794 miles, though there are a number of shortcuts.  The trail includes the summit of Mount Taylor.  Many YouTube bloggers record their journeys along the CDT.  The Rio Puerco Valley is usually mentioned on blogs focused on the stretch of trail between Pie Town and Cuba, New Mexico.  If you watch these videos, you will see hikers descending into the volcanic neck region, with stunning vistas spreading out below them.  Thru-hiking the CDT requires stamina and significant planning.  Water is scarce along the New Mexico route, with hikers needing to filter water from cattle watering wells (and possibly even worse water sources).  Thru-hiking is a fascinating subculture.  Maybe in my youth I would have been tempted by the CDT, but likely not.  Still, it’s interesting to visit the sections of the trail along the road.

What is monsoon season?

Much of central New Mexico is high desert, with minimal rainfall year-round.  San Ysidro, the closest town to this part of the Rio Puerco Valley, gets an average of 12 inches of rain per year.  Compare this to  34 inches in Wichita and 120 inches in Sitka, and you get a dusty place indeed.  Most of the rain that falls in central New Mexico comes during the annual monsoon season (North American Monsoon), usually running from mid-June through the end of September.  During these months, the air over the southwest heats up, creating a high pressure system that draws moist air from the Gulf of Mexico.  (source: KRQE, How does monsoon season work in New Mexico?)

Thunderstorms during monsoon season can be dramatic and dangerous, resulting in injuries and fatalities every year.  These storms move through regions quickly, dropping a lot of rain on sparsely vegetated terrain.  Thunderstorms that occur far upstream can cause walls of water to flow through drainages and canyons miles downstream.  Consequently, flash floods can catch hikers and drivers unaware, sweeping people away and tumbling cars.

In addition, downburst winds can do serious damage.  “Downburst winds are a common byproduct of thunderstorms that affect New Mexico during the Summer Monsoon and are extremely hazardous. They, along with flash floods, are the two thunderstorm-related weather hazards most likely to produce property damage in the State of New Mexico.  A downburst is a non-rotating wind that is created by a column of sinking air in a thunderstorm that, after hitting ground level, spreads out in all directions and is capable of producing damaging straight-line winds of over 100 mph. These winds can often produce damage similar to, but distinguishable from, that caused by tornadoes.”  (source: National Weather Service)

If traveling through New Mexico during monsoon season, always be prepared.

It is also important to note that roads in central and northwest New Mexico become very slippery when wet, causing cars to slide off the road.  If you encounter rainy conditions in the Rio Puerco Valley, exercise caution.  If you find yourself sliding around, it might be best to sit it out and let the roads dry a bit before proceeding.

Since this region of the Rio Puerco Valley has tremendously large skies, the best pictures are taken when there is dramatic cloud cover.  This means summer and early fall.  So just use good judgement.  Make sure your tires have good tread, watch the weather reports, avoid driving in heavy rain, and have some extra food and water in your vehicle in case you become stranded.  Ranchers drive through this region regularly, and they will likely stop to help stranded motorists if you flag them down (albeit while rolling their eyes if you are driving unprepared).  So, it’s not particularly dangerous, so long as you think and plan ahead. 


Ranching in the Rio Puerco Valley

In New Mexico, 47% of all land is public.  Contrast this to Nebraska and Kansas, where I grew up, with 2.8% and 1.9% respectively.  Public land in New Mexico comes in many forms: Bureau of Land Management (BLM), US Forest Service (USF), Department of Defense, State of New Mexico Lands, etc.  BLM lands are made available for many uses, including agriculture, resource extraction, hiking, and film production, among many others.  The land in the Rio Puerco Valley is a checkerboard.  Some of it is public (usually BLM, though there is state land as well), and some of it is private.  Regardless of land ownership, most of it is grazing land. 

BLM leases grazing rights to ranchers who also have permanent private land holdings.  BLM sets limits on how many Animal Unit Months can be supported on a grazing allotment, and how much the rancher must pay to graze there.   An AUM is the amount of forage needed to sustain one cow and her calf, one horse, or five sheep or goats for a month.  Having been raised in farm country on the great plains, I was a bit surprised to see cattle grazing in the desert.  But indeed, if carefully managed, the landscape of the Rio Puerco River Valley can support cattle and horses (though I have not seen any sheep there).  Most of the cattle and horses I see here are healthy and curious.  I did see a few underfed horses, which is heartbreaking but fortunately rare.

Left: Land ownership checkerboard in the Rio Puerco Valley region

Lessees do not own these public lands, but they do help manage them.  This can include removing invasive plant species, conducting controlled burns, or maintaining wells or other livestock watering systems. 

BLM grazing allotments in the Rio Puerco region

There are very few signs regarding land ownership, and those signs that exist are often misleading.  It’s possible you may not know whether you are on public or private lands.  And even if you are public lands, you may not know whether you are on BLM grazing lands, BLM Wilderness Areas or BLM Wilderness Study Areas.  If you’re just driving through, this doesn’t matter much. If the road does not have a gate blocking it, you’re safe to drive there.  Likewise, if you’re hiking the CDT, you’re fine to trek off into the desert.  But if you are planning to hike off-trail, or if you are planning to camp, then you will need to know whose land you are on.  For this, I use several android GPS apps, all of which I pay small subscription fees to use.

If you’re camping on public lands, be sure to check with the agency that owns that land before setting up your tent.  And always ask permission before camping on private land, obviously.  Ranchers can get a bit touchy about trespassers.

Most (but not all) of the ranching pictures on this page were taken on a rough stretch of road between the Ojito Wilderness going north to San Luis (see the map at the bottom of this page).  I would not try this road again in the Honda, but I would do it in the Subaru (which has higher clearance).   

Sources and links:

The Desert-Friendly Cow, High Country News, by Cally Carswell, November 2014

The BLM Wants to Unlock Access to Public Lands Surrounded by Private Land, Adventure Journal, by Katie Klingsporn-Wyofile, June 2022

Public and Private Land Percentages by US States, summitpost.org, 1991.

BLM Grazing Allotment Map for New Mexico.

Livestock Grazing on Public Lands, BLM website.

Ojito Wilderness Area

I hesitate to include Ojito Wilderness Area among the Rio Puerco Valley sites.  It may or may not be situated geographically or geologically in the same area.  However, it is very close to the region, and is connected by a rough dirt road.  Since Ojito is such an interesting place, I have opted to fold it in.

While I have accessed most of the Rio Puerco region via NM 279 north of San Ysidro, Ojito is found on Cabezon road (NM279) off of US Highway 550 south of San Ysidro.  NM279 is a dusty country road, but it is easily passable even to standard-clearance cars.  There are two parking lots marked on the map below, leading off to two very different trails.  From the road, neither trail looks promising, but first appearances can be deceiving. 

The further west parking lot leads to the Ojito Wilderness Trail.  This trail is well marked for first section, but once you round the base of the mesa, trail markings are hard to come by.  It’s best to bring a cell phone with a trails app, and with the region downloaded for offline use.  The Ojito Wilderness Trail takes you to some excellent hoodoos.  Unlike other badlands, Ojito hoodoos are surrounded by pine trees, providing a bit of respite from the sun.  Compared to the color and sheer drama of Bisti Badlands, or even the Lybrook Badlands, Ojito pales.   But Ojito is much closer to Albuquerque than the badlands of northwest New Mexico, and in their own smaller way, just as charming.

The further east parking lot leads to the Seismosaurus Trail.  This trail leads past the site of a Seismosaurus fossil discovered in 1979.  It has since been removed, but it is still possible to find fossils (including petrified wood) in this area.  This 2.2 mile out-and-back trail moves along the east side of a low canyon, ending on a scenic promontory overlooking the floor below.  Here you will find petroglyphs carved into the rocks at your feet, literally at the precipice of the canyon walls.  They are beautiful, though some have clearly been carved out and stolen away.  This trail-end area also is a beautiful (though windy) place to enjoy a picnic lunch.

I have also read that there are numerous other structures (Ancestral Puebloan and Navajo) scattered throughout the canyons of the Ojito Wilderness, but I have not yet explored that far off-trail.

First People in the Rio Puerco Valley

I begin this section with an important caveat.  The recent history of the Rio Puerco Valley is complex and contentious.  It involves settlers and conquerors, droughts and rivers, farmers and pastoralists, Catholic missions and Spanish land grants.  It has been a place of conflict between Navajos, Puebloans, Spaniards and Americans.  “Ownership” has been wrested by force and given to newcomers, sometimes repeatedly so.  It is intimately tied to Spanish invasions starting in 1540, the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, Mexican independence in 1821, the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848, and the oppression tactics of the US Army in the 1860s.  So, my feeble account of this history in the valley should be taken with a mountain (not just a grain) of salt.  I am not an expert, I don’t even play one on TV.  My real purpose here is to show the surprising scope of this seemingly empty region, which, of course, is anything but. 


ANCIENT PEOPLES

The San Juan Basin was peopled by nomadic Clovis hunters at least 10,000 BC.  Evidence of human occupation in Chaco Canyon goes back to 900 BC. 

ANCESTRAL PUEBLOANS

By AD 850, Ancestral Puebloans had begun building kivas, great houses and other structures in the canyon.  Populations ebbed and flowed, with multiple migrations into and out of the canyon over the centuries.  Between 1150 and 1250 AD, “People stop constructing Great House sites and begin migrating to other locations. These people become the Pueblo Peoples of New Mexico and the Hopi of Arizona and many maintain their connections with Chaco today.” (US Park Service, A Brief History of Chaco Culture National Historical Park)

The Rio Puerco Valley has been inhabited and farmed for millennia.  The first corn in the area dates back 5,000 years.  The first Chacoans (Ancestral Puebloans) moved to Guadalupe Mesa in the early 900s, with the first Great House being built in 960.  Evidence suggests that this was a residential community.  Moisture in this area fluctuated year to year, with most water coming from ground water or snow runoff, as opposed to regular rains.  It’s possible that Guadalupe Mesa was continually inhabited, but more likely that Chacoans came and went and came back, following important weather patterns. 

“The members of the Guadalupe Community chose their settlement locale for its great visibility, protection, and access to two major adjacent side drainages. Their great house was on top of a high narrow mesa and its community houses clustered below on hills and ridges.” (Windes & Van West)  Construction at the Great House comes in three distinct phases: Early Chaco (960-1050), Late Chaco (1050-1130) and San Juan / Mesa Verde (1130-1300). 

Guadalupe Mesa was not the only Chacoan settlement in the valley.  There were others, including one 20 km to the south. 

NAVAJO, PUEBLOAN AND HISPANIC INTERACTIONS

According to the Utah American Indian Digital Archive, “Anthropologists hypothesize that the Navajo split off from the Southern Athabaskans and migrated into the Southwest between 200 and 1300 A.D.  Between 900 and 1525 A.D. the Navajos developed a rich and complex culture in the area of present-day northwestern New Mexico. Here the Navajos developed trade networks with both the Anasazi and historic Pueblo peoples, bringing new goods and technologies, such as flint points, and moccasins, to the Southwest.”

This means that early Navajo settlers to northern New Mexico were likely contemporaries with Chacoans before they moved out of Chaco Canyon in 1150.  As noted earlier, these Chacoans left to create today’s modern and vibrant Pueblos.  How the Navajo and Chacoans interacted seems to be a point of academic debate.  Some scholars believe that the Navajo did not arrive in the area until the 1500s, while others trace this migration back much further.  I am more convinced by the latter than the former.  Based on papers like this one, I tend to believe that groups of individuals came into contact, developed trading partnerships, intermarried, fought over resources, formed and reformed around various leaders and world-views, and basically intertwined to some extent.  Many Navajo today claim at least partial descent from the Chacoans, and I see no reason to doubt them.

In any event, it seems the Rio Puerco Valley was sparsely populated for several centuries after 1300, when the Chacoans left Guadalupe Mesa. In 1595, the Spanish began colonizing New Mexico in earnest.  Santa Fe was established as the capital in 1610, and the Spanish government began giving out land grants in 1692.

“In the 1670s, the Spanish governor of New Mexico ordered several Pueblo holy men executed, and many others publicly whipped. Po’Pay, a holy man and War Captain of Ohkay Owingeh, was one of the men whipped in Santa Fe, an experience that hardened his resolve to drive the Spanish from New Mexico. In the face of turmoil, suffering from prolonged drought, and fearing the complete loss of our culture, the Pueblo people resorted to armed resistance.” (A Brief History of the Pueblo Revolt, Indian Pueblo Cultural Center)

Po’Pay organized and led a revolt, pushing the Spaniards out of New Mexico for 12 years.  However, they returned in 1692, and reconquered the region.  This forced many Puebloans into exile.

From 1745 to 1812, a thriving Navajo settlement existed at Big Bead Mesa, near the current ghost town of Casa Salazar (south of Guadalupe).  This community was large, consisting of 90 hogan sites.

“This is an impressive fortified Navajo village site. After moving into the Big Bead Mesa region, the Navajos established a stronghold that menaced the pueblos of Laguna and Acoma, and formed an alliance with the Gila Apaches. The site is an important representative of patterns of trade and raiding that characterized Navajo relations with Pueblos, Apache, and Hispanics.” (National Historic Landmarks Program, National Park Service).



Sources and links:


Guadalupe Ruin Chacoan Outlier: Archaeological Site.  Four Corners Region, National Geographic.

SPACE SYNTAX ANALYSIS AT THE CHACOAN OUTLIER OF GUADALUPE, by Ruth M. Van Dyke.  American Antiquity, 1999.

Landscapes, Horticulture, and the Early Chacoan Bonito Phase, by Thomas C. Windes and Carla R. Van West.  The Greater Chaco Landscape.

Rio Puerco Valley Map

Volcanic necks

Ghost towns

Guadalupe Ruins

Stagecoach stops

CDT Trail

Ranch country

Ojito Wilderness

For the Google Map below, icons in white are minor locations, relative to this post, and icons in green represent more important locations.  The dots are the many volcanic necks (cerros and cerritos) dotting the landscape.  I will update this map as information becomes available, and as I continue to explore the region.

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