Three Rivers Petroglyph Site - Over 21,000 Prehistoric Drawings To Find

(!7 miles north of Tulorosa, New Mexico) 62 degrees, clear blue sky

Yes, you read the title of our post correctly.  There are over 21,000 "glyphs" at this site.  We decided to visit Three Rivers Petroglph, near Tularosa, New Mexico, and see how many we could find.  There are wonderful examples of sunbursts, wildlife, masks, birds, and many mythical rock carvings.  They were pecked about a 1000 years ago by a group of prehistoric Native Americans known as Jomada Mogollons. 

A rugged 1/2 mile trail leads up into a huge jumble of rocks.  They are everywhere and only a few are marked.  We crawled among the rocks for a few hours and enjoyed finding some of them.  Be sure to take a hiking stick and keep an eye out for rattlesnakes.  There are more carvings off the trail too.

Very little is known about the meaning of the rock carvings and there appears to be strong disagreement among scholars.  It is thought that they worshipped nature and had a strong connection to their environment. There are certainly lots of them with a mystical quality. 

Trail (1/2 mile one way)

This is a BLM site and there two RV sites available (water only) with nice restrooms and a camphost on the premises.  There is also a very nice National Forest campground seven miles further down the road.  The sites are primitive and there are nice trails leading up the mountains.  We would not recommend these sites for motorhomes due to the rugged roads.  However, the BLM sites would work well due to the road being paved to the visitors center. 

 

The weather in New Mexico is perfect right now and the surrounding countryside was so beautiful.  Be sure to stop at the trading post as you exit off the freeway.  We enjoyed some ice cream after our hike and there is beautiful native jewelry and artwork for sale. 

Visit To A Weird And Interesting Site - Very Large Array

(Socorro, NM) 52 degrees, blue skies, very windy, elevation 7400 ft

Over the weekend we also visited a very unusual site called the Very Large Array, an astronomical radio observatory.  There are 27 antennas spread out over the desert about 50 miles from Socorro.  It is definitely in the middle of nowhere.  Each antenna is 82 feet and they weigh 230 tons.  Our tax dollars are at work here with the initial cost being 73 million dollars.  It was dedicated in 1980. 

Scientist monitoring all the antennas

There are 12 guided tours each year that tour the control center.  We were lucky and happened to be there for one of them.  We were told that radio astronomy is the study of celestial objects that emit radio waves. With radio astronomy, scientists are able to  study astronomical phenomena that are often invisible in other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. They can also probe the “Dark Ages” before the onset of the first stars or galaxies, and study the earliest generation of galaxies.

You can also take a self guided tour at any time.  The control center, however, can only be seen on the guided tours (first Saturday of the month). We were able to ask the scientist questions for only five minutes.  However, I am not sure I understood his answers. :)  They speak a different language here. 

Radio astronomers from all over the world analyze and explore the black holes that live at the hearts of most galaxies. These antennas can process 380 billion bits of information every second.  Whew, that is a whole lot of data. Scientist propose and bid for permission to use the antennas.  Sometimes they only can use them for a few days or hours or for several months. 

The antennas move along railroad tracks and can be arranged in four different configurations.  Currently they are in the D configuration (darn close together) and they are studying a project involving the sun. They change positions about every four months or so. 

It was worth the effort to visit this strange and unusual place.