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New Mexico's Mysterious Stone Towers,
Part VI, continued...
(Comment #7: February 22, 2003)
Ridge Y is a classic New Mexican hogback. The eastern side juts up sharply from the valley floor in a bluff wall that exposes many layers of rock strata. The western side rises in a shallower slope, a table of rock that has been tilted from the valley floor and propped up on one side. 
Ridge Y eastern side
The ridge itself runs north and south along the eastern edge of the hogback. I felt that the most likely location for towers would be along the ridge in places that could overlook the broad La Reina valley, below, to the east. I knew I couldn’t see the towers from the road, I’d already tried that; so I‘d go directly on to the ridge by a small stub road shown on the map. I’d seen it last trip, but I hadn’t investigated. I’d park there and hike straight east until I hit the ridge itself. Once on the ridge I’d hike the crest north. If there were towers, I’d find them. |
Ridge Y access
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I did a quick circle of the ridge for photos, and then I went directly to the side road and on to the ridge. (Much of that trip up the ridge I’ve already written in “Travel/Explore #2: Where Have All the Ruin Sites Gone?” You can read that in our archived Back Issues.)
I drove the Ciera up the road that flanked the western side of the ridge. About a half-mile north a small branch (shown on the map) opened into a narrow flat area where I could park for the hike. I locked the car and was about to shoulder my small pack when I caught a whiff of something unpleasant. It was coming in on the easterly breeze that blew down from the ridge, the same musty, stale stink you sometimes find in old, closed buildings. I recognized it immediately—old human feces. And then I saw it only a few feet east of the car. Scattered about in the grass at the edge of the small parking area was a sea of dried turds and white tufts of toilet paper. They formed a band of no man's land between me and the ridge. The ranger's statement came to mind: the Sierra Club had been working up here. From the parking site a deeply rutted road climbed north, farther up the ridge. It could save me some hiking time if it wasn’t too rough for Mom’s car. I jogged up the road to investigate. At the top of the slope, the road turned directly into a paved parking lot! What was this? At one side of the twenty-meter-diameter lot was a deep pile of gray pea gravel. SC again! One of their improvements. I moved the car to the new lot; the ruts in the road were easy to navigate. The trip to the ridge would be easier, too. After all, this part of the ridge had taken on a definite “national park” appearance. Any resemblance to wild high desert was gone. As I locked the car I stumbled on the foreleg of a calf (or a deer, I wasn’t sure which). It unnerved me a bit because it was the first sign I’d seen in five years that there might be predators about. From the new lot a nicely paved path meandered eastward toward the crest of the ridge. Two steel pipes set into the ground at the start of the trail prevented cars and trucks from driving into the site. Just past the pipes, stapled to a tree alongside the trail, a familiar cardboard sign announced ruins ahead. It was a warm morning with a light breeze. The air was fragrant with the remarkable sweetness of pine and fresh air. I’d never noticed such a pleasant perfume before, except down in the valley among the sage brush. That was beautiful, too. But in a moment the heavenly scent began to turn hellish. It was coming from the old pines that lined the trail. Huge sheets of bark had been ripped off each tree, exposing wounds that oozed ribbons of gummy yellow rosin. When the SC pavers had encountered an overhanging branch they had sawed it free and ripped it down, skinning off the bark on one side of the tree with it, all the way to the ground. Apparently nobody had told them how to cut branches from trees without stripping bark. | ||
The first pit
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At the top of the path, the trail branched north and south. I went north and almost immediately came to what seemed to be a very large pit house, about twenty feet in diameter, encircled by a dirt and stone rim about a foot high. I looked closely at the stones and determined easily that they were arranged over a layer of black polyethylene film, obviously the SC’s method of ruin stabilization. Someone had collected small, poor pottery fragments and scattered them over the rim. I had no doubt that better shards had found their way back to civilization with the SC workers.
Had this been a tower? I didn’t think so. For one thing, it was round. Hibben had told me on the phone that there was only one round tower in the complex. Second, there weren’t enough stones in the parapet and scattered around it to make a wall more than a foot and a half tall. This must be something else. As I traveled farther north I found more stripped pines and other pits to the right and left of the path. All were round and stabilized with plastic film or were so fallen down that stabilization would serve no purpose. The path ended at a small field of boulders and a tight barbed wire fence supported by steel spikes—plainly the end of the path. |
The northmost pit
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I retraced my steps south to the path entrance. From here the path continued around a smooth curve. In the brush ahead of me I caught sight of what I’d come for—the square corner of what was, certainly, a tower!
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