On February 16 and 17, 2019, I headed out to El Paso to attend the Texas Archeological Society Rock Art Academy.  I was excited to attend this event, for several reasons.  First, I was looking forward to seeing some old friends, and making some new ones.  Second, for a long time, I had wanted to explore the area north of Fort Hancock, Texas, which is about an hour east of El Paso.  This area, known as Alamo Canyon, is home to a very unique petroglyph style known as “The Diablo Dam” style.  There is also a cave there, called Jaguar Cave, which contains a number of stunning pictographs.  I had never been able to figure out the exact route to the site, and was unsure whether it was on public or private land.  The night before I left, I went on Google Earth and figured out a couple of different possible routes to get to the dam which is located in Alamo Canyon next to the Diablo Plateau.  For an article on the Alamo Canyon Rock Art Site, see https://texasbeyondhistory.net/trans-p/images/ap4.html.  The final reason I was excited about attending this event was because the second day of the Academy would be spent hiking to rock art sites in the non-public areas of Hueco Tanks State Park.  I had paid a brief visit to Hueco Tanks in August of 2015, on the way home from the Pecos Conference in Mancos, Colorado.  During this visit, I was not feeling well (I had cut of part of my left index finger a few days before and was in considerable pain), so I spent only a couple of hours looking at the public part of North Mountain, and was unable to visit any of the sites on East or West Mountains.  Bottom line, I was looking forward to experiencing lots of rock art on this trip!

I left McQueeney at 4:30 am on Friday, February 15, 2019.  I drove straight out to Fort Hancock and arrived around 12:30 pm (Fort Hancock is in the Mountain Time Zone, so I had gained an hour.)  I headed to the north on an unnamed, unpaved road, using the information I had gleaned from Google Earth the night before.  It took me about 45 minutes to get to the dam, and the route was, on the whole, not bad at all.  I did not pass through any locked gates, and the roads were in good shape, except for the last mile and a half, which had a couple of small wash crossing with some fairly deep sand.  After arriving at the west end of the dam, I gathered my gear, put on my hiking shoes and pack, and began exploring.  In short order, I began to find petroglyphs, small caves, and lots of bedrock mortars.  I spent about four hours before I needed to leave to make sure I got back to the interstate before dark.  It was a wonderful afternoon, with perfect weather and lots of interesting rock art.  I will post a more complete gallery in the Rock Art Galleries section of this website, but here are some pictures from my time in Alamo Canyon that afternoon….

In addition to the petroglyphs which are found on large boulders and the cliffs of the canyon, I explored a couple of caves.  One was Jaguar Cave, which was easily accessible and contained some amazing pictographs, including a bear, a horned serpent, and what appeared to be pictographs of a jaguar and a canine figure.  The other small cave was high up and difficult to photograph.  I attempted to enter it by climbing up above it, then climbing down.  From the top, I could see a narrow slot that allowed access to the cave from behind, too narrow for me to squeeze through!  I felt it was too dangerous to enter the cave from the front (after climbing down), so I had to be content with photographing the vivid red elements from the location in front and below the cave.  Here are some photos, including D-Stretch images, of the caves….

Saturday morning, February 16, 2019, found us at the El Paso Museum of Archaeology for a day of classroom learning at the TAS 2019 Rock Art Academy (https://archaeology.elpasotexas.gov/).  The folks at the museum were most gracious and accommodating hosts, as were Fernando Arias and the other volunteers from the El Paso Archaeological Society (http://www.epas.com/). We enjoyed informative presentations from Larry Loendorf, Myles Miller, Margaret Berrier, and Mark Willis.  Jimmy Barrera served as our coordinator for the event and did a great job organizing and keeping us on schedule.  Sunday morning, we traveled out to Hueco Tanks State Park in carpools and vans.  First on the agenda was a demonstration of pole photography and Portable X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (pXRF) (https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/pdf/pXRF_essay_shackley.pdf) equipment by Mark Wills.  We then split into groups and hiked to various rock art sites the rest of the day.  Among the sites I visited were “Puking Horse Panel”, “The Cloud Terrace Alcove”, “The Horned & Plumed Figure Panel”,  “The Starry Eyed Man”, “Cave of the Masks”,  “White Mask Cave”, and “The Yellow Men Panel”.  I enjoyed these sites, and the commentary provided by Margaret, Myles, Larry, and Tim Roberts (of Texas Parks and Wildlife).  Hueco Tanks is a truly historic and sacred place, and I am grateful for the opportunity to experience more of it….  I see another trip in my future, as there is much I have not experienced there!  I headed toward home and spent the night about halfway in Iraan upon the recommendation of Mark Willis (http://www.trailwestlodge.com/).  I will post detailed galleries of both Alamo Canyon and Hueco tanks in the “Rock Art Galleries” section of this website.  Below are a couple of galleries highlighting the activities and rock art we enjoyed at the 2019 Rock Art Academy……