Road closures killed my original agenda for today. No matter, New Mexico has plenty to hold my attention. Today became Rock Day. At two National Monuments I saw first-hand evidence in the form of graffiti of people long dead and learned their stories. I thought it might be boring … wrong! I capped the day with a drive to the top of a 10,700 foot rock called Sandia Crest. From there I could see forever.
El Morro is a bluff in this arid region. For hundreds of years through a quirk of nature water has pooled at one spot at the base of El Morro. Availability of water made this a place where people settled or paused in their travels to resupply. For some reason, starting with the early Puebloans who lived atop El Morro, a tradition of scrawling graffiti began. This continued over the years with subsequent visitors until the U.S. Government put a stop to it in 1906 after they realized what an historic treasure had accumulated.
What “historic treasure”? How about petroglyphs from ancient Puebloans? 
How about visitors from Spain who arrived 15 years before the Pilgrims landed? (See picture.) How about visitors who later became powerful people? How about west-bound settlers who later became famous? There are over 2,000 inscriptions and the Park Service does a good job of revealing their stories.
“Revealing” is not the Park Service strategy at Petroglyphs. The Monument is an open and unprotected rock-filled canyon which anyone has easy access to. The Park Service relies on a strategy of anonymity to protect the ancient glyphs. The result for visitors is a hunting game. The canyon is 1.5 miles long and there are many, many, many rocks. An example can be seen at the top.
From the west side of Albuquerque I drove to the east side and up the Turquoise Trail which runs along the Sandia Mountains. A side trip was up to the highest point in the range, a place called the Sandia Crest. It wasn’t easy. In 12 miles I climbed from 5,500 feet to 10,700 feet over packed snow and ice but the reward was great as you see above. Pictures from on high can be seen below.
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