Three Rivers Petroglyph Site, New Mexico

We spent a lovely, cool night here at the Three Rivers Petroglyph site. The elevation is above 5,000 feet, so the temperature is much milder than on the valley floor. There's also a pretty stiff wind, which helps with the heat when you're out in the sun. This is a small but very nice campground. It has several campsites with no utilities, and two with electric and water. Very nice restrooms, and a friendly and helpful host in the office.

It was chilly when we got up this morning (78 degrees!) but warmed up quickly, so we ate a quick breakfast and headed for the trail up to the petroglyphs. The trail is nicely built and well maintained. There are numbered areas to point out some of the most exemplary glyphs. This is an amazing area, as almost every face of some of the boulders has designs on it. Unfortunately, there has also been quite a bit of vandalism. Scratching and pecking by recent visitors is definitely a distraction, and in some cases has damaged the rock art. We only visited one area, leaving two for future visits. As it is, we were snapping photos for two and a half hours! Click on the photo to go to the slide show.

Along the trail we met a gentleman from Germany who has written a tour book on the southwest for German tourists (it's written in German so we won't be reading it). He leads tours and this is one of the sites he features.

After the hike it was back to camp to have lunch and enjoy a little shade. We sat and read, enjoyed the fragrance of the chaparral (creosote bush), and watched the fly-catchers dip and soar as they snatched bugs out of the air. In the late afternoon we took the short path across the highway from the campground to see the restored Mogollon village - really just three examples of types of housing that were used. There is too much brush to be able to detect much in the way of other ruins.

After dinner entertainment in these parts consists of star-gazing and listening to the local cattle mumble while the coyote pups argue. That and the occasional cicada buzzing sent us off to bed fairly early. We want to get an early start tomorrow, as high winds are expected.