You might recall our stay at Aguirre Springs Camgpround near Las Cruces, New Mexico, in the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument. We had a wonderful time, completed a death march hike, and met AWEmazing people (pictured above).
When we shared with Brian that we were headed to Texas next, he gave us a couple of places to consider – one of them being Hueco Tanks. Thanks Brian!
We were only there two nights and took over 100 photos and clips! What a nightmare it was for Robert to edit, but it was so worth it! We had planned to stay longer, but something came up and we had to shuffle our schedule. Can you imagine how much footage we would have had to cull and organize if we had not left so soon!
The sunsets were gorgeous.
But the thing that struck us most was the extraordinary effort that the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is putting in to maintaining the sacred grounds of Hueco Tanks.
We won’t get in to the travesty and atrocities committed against the indigenous Indians of this country. It is criminal, and one of the blights of American History, but it was heartwarming to see the work, time, and money going in to preserving what is left of this sacred land.
GRAFFITI
True indigenous ancient rock art is known as pictographs or petroglyphs.
The plants and rocks were also beautiful!
Everywhere we looked, the view was spectacular! (Click on any pic and scroll through for larger views.)
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- Hueco Tanks will have water for wildlife when the rest of the desert is dry.
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- Javelinas Passing by Dry Tank. Featured in the Hueco Tanks video.
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- Photo of Robert setting up camera. He stepped over the camera to get the shot featured in the video.
And last, but certainly not least, are the climbers of Hueco Tanks. Wow, oh wow. They come from all over the world and from what we witnessed, are very respectful of the land on which they tread. In peak season, they have to wait sometimes 2 or 3 days to get their chance to climb here because the park limits how many visitors are on-site at any given time. During our stay, the wait was only a few hours. As one group leaves, they let staff at the park office know, and the next group gets in. Overnight campers go to the front of the line ….. IF you get there early enough.
The following climbers are featured in our Huecos Tank video. Please go there and give them a shout out, and share that video. It is AWEmazing to watch them scale the mountain with sheer strength.
Calvin Rittenhouse
Thank you for the beautiful, layered sunset!
I am glad that Texas is working to preserve the history of this place. I had no idea it existed the one time I’ve been close by, following US 62 back toward Ohio. Depending on my health and other factors, there’s a good chance I’ll be close enough to visit there sometime in the next year, so it’s good to know about the State Park.
Debra Dickinson
Good for you Calvin! We hope you are able to visit here, you will enjoy this place.
DB Bourgeois
Wow, oh WOW! Amazing area. The photographs are gorgeous. I can see why you ended up with 100s of photos and video. ~db
Debra Dickinson
Thank you, DB! At 100/day, we joked that it was probably a good thing we weren’t staying longer. LOL. We look forward to going back though and exploring this AWEmazing place even more. We’ll just have to hold our camera trigger finger back. ;))
meri dian
the sunset photo (night view from our campsite) looks surreal. beautiful photos!
Debra Dickinson
Thank you, meri dian! We walked around stunned by the beauty there.