JohnRich 4 #1 February 8, 2006 I'll try this out in a thread and see how many people show interest. If the view counts start to taper off, I can always stop posting new stuff. This will contain descriptions and photos from one of my recent hikes in southwest Texas, where I love to get down inside the canyons along the Mexican border and Rio Grande River, and visit ancient Indian caves. I am going to remove all identifying references to the names of this location. The owner of the canyon has a private museum of artifacts found over the last 120 years, and it includes several mummified Indian corpses. He wishes to keep this a secret so that some modern Indian tribe doesn't try to claim ownership of the mummies, and take them away from him. He is a very diligent and respectful conservator of the canyon, the artifacts, and the history, and works with archeologists and scientists to expand our knowledge of theses ancient people. This was my second trip to this canyon. The first time I visited, I hunted down the land owner by myself and got his permission to hike in the canyon. The land owner is a tall, tough, wiry man in his 70’s, and is the fourth generation from his family to live on this canyon land. This return visit was an official tour offered for members of the Rock Art Foundation, of which I am a member. And as a special treat, we also got to visit his private museum housed in an out-building next to his house, situated along the top rim. We started out standing on the edge of the upper rim, with the land owner pointing out the sites of various Indian caves down inside the canyon, and other geographical and historical features. Cave #1 Our first destination was the Indian cave shelter called "Cave #1". It’s located under a cliff overhang, at the top of the talus (loose rock debris), as shown in photo #1 (Cave1a). It’s difficult to pick out in the photo due to the contrast between the bright sunshine and the dark shadow line. This is near the lower end of the canyon, where it empties into the Rio Grande, which is hidden from view on the right side of the photo, curves to top center, and then back to top right. From the top rim of the canyon, we hiked down a steep side canyon into the bottom. See photo #2 (Canyon). This canyon has been cut out of solid limestone rock by eons of water erosion, from rare rainfall that occurs in the desert. This photo gives a good idea of what it is like down inside the canyon. The cliff walls are several hundred feet high at most, dropping to a height of about 50 feet at the top end of the canyon. You can see people in there, for scale. The floor is either solid rock, sometimes worn smooth from water, piles of boulders jumbled up into “log jams”, or large beds of loose gravel. There wasn’t much vegetation to fight in the canyon floor, but that was a big factor climbing the angled sides up into the caves in some places. Photo #3 (Cave1b). Here we are inside the cave, after climbing up to it from the canyon floor, over loose rock. I’ve climbed up on a huge boulder at one end for this photo. It’s impossible to get a close-up view, as the view from below is obscured by brush, and once you're inside, it’s too big to get it all in your viewfinder. The overhang is about 20 feet deep, and on the back wall of the cave, are ancient Indian pictographs (paintings)! Next up: photos of the mysterious pictographs. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kmcguffee 0 #2 February 8, 2006 John, That place looks beautiful. Next time I'm at the DZ I'd like to get some info on it, if you don't mind. "Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do." Ben Franklin Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
waltappel 1 #3 February 8, 2006 John, I always like reading your posts on this stuff. I'm guilty of not replying and telling you in the past, but I'm telling you now. I like this stuff--please keep posting.Walt Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Douva 0 #4 February 8, 2006 Very interesting, John.I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NtheSeaOrSky 0 #5 February 8, 2006 are there more pictures? .Life is not fair and there are no guarantees... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
efs4ever 3 #6 February 8, 2006 Call me up sometime before you go. I'd be interested. Remember, I'm a camera geek. _____________Russell M. Webb D 7014 Attorney at Law 713 385 5676 https://www.tdcparole.com Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AggieDave 6 #7 February 8, 2006 John, I want you to know that I hate you. Ok, I'm jealous. Tell you what, next time something like this comes up, let me know, I'd be more then happy to help you out. You know, do things like split the cost of gas out there and back, hold your camera so you can be in more of the pics, etc. Alrighty, seriously, you're killing me, its been nearly 4 years since I've been on a trail (tonight's run through the "woods" and throw a creek doesn't count) and every time I see one of these posts it makes me want to run away and backpack for a month.--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pincheck 0 #8 February 8, 2006 nice pics you lucky man Billy-Sonic Haggis Flickr-Fun Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JohnRich 4 #9 February 8, 2006 Quotekmcguffee: John, That place looks beautiful. Next time I'm at the DZ I'd like to get some info on it, if you don't mind. Hi Kenny! I'll have to spin-off one of my CD's of all my travel adventures for you to read. I've got a lot of cool stories and photos on there. Quotewaltappel: please keep posting. NtheSeaOrSky: are there more pictures? Yes, a lot more to come. Some very cool stuff. Especially the mummy, which I figure I'll save for last to force everyone to keep coming back and looking. Quoteefs4ever: Call me up sometime before you go. I'd be interested. Remember, I'm a camera geek. AggieDave: every time I see one of these posts it makes me want to run away and backpack Gee, it sounds like we need some kind of Dropzone.com group hiking trip! There is lots of this kind of stuff west of Del Rio, only a six hour drive from Houston. That six hour drive, takes you back in time about 2,000 years. But much of it is on private land, which requires special access that doesn't come around very often. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JohnRich 4 #10 February 8, 2006 Now I will present individual portions of the "Cave #1" mural paintings, with close-up photos of the actual rock paintings as they exist today, along with the 1930's watercolor reproductions for reference so you can see better what it is supposed to be. The originals have faded considerably. These paintings range from 200 to 2,000 years old. The last image is the painting of the entire back wall mural: put the bottom image to the right of the top image, and that's what the big view looks like. Amazing stuff! Oh, and before you ask; No, I don't have a clue what they mean. Between the Apache, Commanche and U.S. Cavalry, these Indians were all killed off before anyone thought to ask; "What does that represent?" There are many theories, but all are just speculation. The theories are based upon good guesses though. For example, some beliefs seem to be universal amongst all cultures, such as the belief in a god or divine being of some type, heaven and hell of some type (underworld, spirit world), belief in an afterlife, and so on. And many of these images may represent such things. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JohnRich 4 #11 February 8, 2006 Here's that last image I promised, which is the painting of the entire back wall mural: put the bottom image to the right of the top image, and that's what the big view looks like. Amazing stuff! I'm only allowed five attachments per message, so this one didn't make it with the others, above. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JohnRich 4 #12 February 8, 2006 Two more items of interest from Cave #1: 1) Mortar holes. These were ground into rock by the Indians, and used like a mortar and pestal, to grind beans for food, and to grind minerals to make colored paint. They would use either the rounded end of a log, or a smooth round rock, to crush the item into paste or powder. In some places, these mortar holes are so deep, that when reaching in with your hand, you go shoulder deep to hit bottom. 2) Slash marks. These marks indicate where the Indians sharpened their bone tools to a fine point, to be used, for example, as awls to punch holes for sewing, and other utility functions. I have a photo of some of those bone tools which I'll present later. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JohnRich 4 #13 February 9, 2006 Onto Cave #2! This cave is located just about 100 yards from Cave #1. The tour guide was going right past it as if it didn’t exist, so I had to speak up and say: “Hey, can we go up into that cave?” I don’t like to miss anything. The guide explained that he was going to skip this cave because there isn’t much to see inside it, and there wasn’t a trail cleared through the brush to get to it. That doesn’t dissuade me, and I was still curious. So I asked for permission to scamper up there on my own, and received it. The remainder of the group proceeded up the canyon floor to the next site. Sissies! For some reason, when there are two caves close together, they give them both the same name, and call the smaller one an “annex”. So this is called "Cave 2 Annex". I don’t know why they do that. And I wonder what they would do if there were three caves close together? Photo 1: The view of Cave 2 Annex from the top rim of the canyon, looking down. Photo 2: The view from the canyon floor, looking up through the heavy brush growing on the talus slope of loose rock. Photo 3: Upon arriving inside the cave, huffing and puffing from the climb, the first thing I noticed was this arrowhead laying on the ground. Wow! It’s a nice one, and after examining it closely, admiring the craftsmanship, I left it behind as I was supposed to, for someone else to enjoy. Or steal. Photo 4: The paintings on the inside. These are very faint, and I had to scan the wall for quite a few minutes to even notice them. Instead of being on the center far back wall where paintings usually are located, these were all the way over on one side. Shown first, the actual paintings as they exist today, and then the 1930’s water color reproduction. Photo 5: That’s all there was to see in this cave. So I started back down the slope to the canyon floor to hurry and re-join the group. Remember how I said the slope was loose rock? Remember how I said the slope was covered with heavy brush? You know how nearly every plant in the desert has sharp thorns or needles? Well, these things combined to get me. Going down the slope, I slipped in the loose rock and went sliding down on my butt for a few yards, out of control. Along the way, a mesquite bush reached out and clawed my arm as I went by. The result: a bloody mess. Sitting here typing this a month and half later, I’ve still got a nice scar showing on my arm from this deep scratch. That's all for Cave #2. Next up, tomorrow, is Cave #3, which is a huge one, with fairly good paintings, and a very special surprise! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JohnRich 4 #14 February 12, 2006 Now we've hiked up the canyon to Cave #3. This cave is huge; about 100 yards wide, and big enough to play a football game inside. This was a prehistoric Indian living shelter. The dirt is all churned up on the inside, and pocked with holes, where archeologists have dug looking for artifacts. I did find some flecks of flint, which looked like they had been knapped off of bigger chunks, in the making of arrowheads. There were just a few spots on the wall containing pictographs, and those were very faint. Photo #1: View of the cave from the canyon floor. Photo #2: View from inside the cave, looking back down the canyon. You can see a person in the shadows for scale. Photo #3: Indian paintings, alongside modern reproduction. Photo #4: More paintings. This one has a neat human figure, holding a staff, with some kind of decoration hanging from his outstretched arms. And there are several snake-like images. Photo #5: A nice buffalo? Ot is it a wooly mammoth? These people did co-exist thousands of years ago during the time of mammoths. How do they know this? Because in the next cave we'll visit, archaeologists dug up a butchered mammoth there, and also an ancient camel. But I'm getting ahead of myself... Next up, some more goodies from this cave, along with a very rare surprise found inside. Stay tuned! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NtheSeaOrSky 0 #15 February 12, 2006 OH WOW!!!!!!! Life is not fair and there are no guarantees... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JohnRich 4 #16 February 13, 2006 Finishing up the sights in Cave #3. Photos 1 & 2: More mortar holes, using for grinding plants into food, and minerals into paint. As these holes are used, ground up rock would get mixed in with the grain. So they ended up eating a little rock dust with every meal, which was hell on their teeth. Yum! The same is true with the stone metates, where a flat, concave rock is used to hold the grain, which is ground by rubbing another rock back and forth across the top. Metates are found at a lot at abandoned pueblos, because they were too heavy to carry when the Indians moved somewhere else. It was easier to just make a new one. Photo #3: This is a close-up photo, or at least as close as I dare to get, of a beehive. There were three or four of these kinds of hives in the canyon, and they are located under rock overhangs where the hive is protected from weather. We tried not to do anything to make the bees feel threatened, and managed not to stir them up and get attacked. The structure is much like a beekeepers box where he has wooden plates spaced a few inches apart for the bees to build their honeycomb upon. These hives consists of a series of “plates” of honeycomb, glued to the ceiling, and spaced a few inches apart in a cluster. Photo 4: Saving the best of Cave #3 for last. People have visited this cave site for 125 years since the Indians were run off. Archeologists have had expeditions here where they dig through the dirt, sifting it through wire mesh, and examining anything bigger than a quarter-inch for significance. Generations of local residents have walked the canyon, picking up artifacts. So you would think that the odds of finding anything new would be really low, right? Well, there we were in our small group, hanging out, looking at the pictographs painted on the wall, and one lady peered down at the ground and said; “Hey!” She bent over and picked up this rock with a painted pattern on it. Somehow, no one had ever spotted this before in all that time. This is called a “painted pebble”, and they are rather rare. Some of them contain images of a woman, such as this one, which seems to have breasts at the top, and a pubic area at the bottom. I don’t know what the dots would represent. Were they carried as sort of a “business card” to represent your personae? No one knows what they symbolize… We’ll see more of these later when I get to the “museum” segment of my trip. Photo #5: Lunch break in the shade of the canyon cliff wall. Before heading off to the final cave, Cave #4. There's not much to see there, but it has the best history of all. Stay tuned. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JohnRich 4 #17 February 14, 2006 After lunch, we headed further up the canyon to the final cave site, Cave #4. This required a lot of boulder scrambling, as there are huge jumbles of giant rocks piled up in the canyon. Sometimes you squeeze around them, sometimes climbing over, and sometimes hopping from one to another on top. It's a lot of physical fun. This site is famous for being a mass buffalo kill location. The ancient Indians, 2,700 years ago, created a buffalo herd stampede, and drove them over the top rim of the cliff at this location. The stampeding buffalo on the plains on top would not have seen the cliff until it was too late, and then if they tried to stop, they would be pushed over the edge by the onrushing buffalo behind them. Some of the buffalo hit the rock pile under the edge of the cliff and rolled into the canyon, where subsequent gully-washers would have washed away all the remains. However, some of the buffalo also rolled back into the cave, where, protected from the elements, the remains of these have been well-preserved for thousands of years. The Indians butchered many of these buffalo, and tool marks can still be found on the bones, where meat was stripped off, joints cut apart, and bones split by hammering to get the marrow. Imagine the sophisticated social organization, discipline and specialization required to hunt a herd of buffalo in this manner. Perhaps some brave few hunters donned buffalo costumes and melded into the herd to get them moving in the right direction. Then others popped up, yelling, to start the stampede. And they would have had to keep it moving in the proper direction. All of these things would have required a plan, coordination, leadership, obedience and communication. Imagine the sights and sounds of hundreds of dead and dying buffalo piled upon one another. The women would have flocked to the scene to strip the carcasses of hides and the choicest meat, then the hides had to be tanned, and the meat dried for preservation. The bones were split open with rocks for marrow, and other bones and horns saved for tools and ornaments. But there were far more buffalo killed than the Indians could use - it's impossible to stop a stampeding herd of buffalo once it's started. The huge pile of rotting carcasses and fat eventually self-ignited and burned, charring many of the bones. That's the impressive story of this cave site. On with the photos! Photo #1: This cave is not obvious that it is even there. If you didn't know to look for it, you could easily miss it. The opening is hidden, because a house-sized hunk of rock has sheared off the cliff, and lies in front of the overhang (the part overgrown with brush). So it doesn’t look like there is any rock overhang there at all. You can only get into it by hiking along the edge of the cliff, and entering from the left or right sides through the bottom of the slit between the cliff and the talus. Photo #2: The view from inside the cave. The narrow slit entrance is at the far end against the cliff wall, and the rock talus on the right is blocking the front outward-facing part of the cave. In the foreground, you can see a pit in the floor which has been excavated by archeologists. In the back by the opening slit, you see a mound covered with a black tarp - this is the pile of ancient buffalo bones that remains to this day, protected from the elements for further research. Photo #3: Picking up the edge of the black tarp covering the pile of bones, reveals many remnants. All the skulls have been removed. Photo #4: A buffalo horn found under the tarp. Photo #5: Further down in the earth, this excavation pit revealed the bones of ancient horses, camels, and even a mastodon, dating back 12,000 years ago. Those animals would have been driven up into this box canyon by Indian hunters, where they were trapped, and dispatched with spears. The mastodon was found near the end of the scheduled dig, and they didn't have time to remove it - so it is still down there... That's it for Cave #4. Next: the very upper end of the canyon, with a "pour-off" and "tinaja". Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jonstark 8 #18 February 14, 2006 Facinating stuff John. Thanks! jon Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zennie 0 #19 February 14, 2006 QuoteFacinating stuff John. Thanks! I'll say! The landing areas look kind of sketchy though.... - Z "Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JohnRich 4 #20 February 14, 2006 From Cave #4 we headed for the upper box-end of the canyon. Photo #1: This photo shows the box-end of the canyon and the tinaja. A "box end" refers to a dead end where three sides are cliffs with no way out. A "tinaja" is a Spanish name for a water hole, which is lingo brought to the desert by early Spanish explorers and missionaries. Up on top you can see the highway and railroad bridges, which spoil the scenery here. Underneath the bridge is the creek pour-off into the water hole at the bottom of the bowl. The water is about 20' deep in the center, I'm told, and has never been known to dry out. The cliff walls here were about 50 feet high. It was nice and cool inside the box-end from all the non-heat absorbing rock, and it made a good place to relax after hiking and climbing over boulders for about a mile and a half to get here. You can see little ol' me standing there at the edge of the water, for scale. Photo #2: Another one of those beehives hanging under a rock overhang. Shhh, don't disturb them... Photo #3: Wildlife of a different sort. We started hiking back down the canyon to the climb-out point, and I was off to the side by myself picking my own route instead of following the crowd. As I passed by a boulder, my eyes caught sight of a particular symmetrical pattern which I have come to fear in the desert. I quickly sidestepped to get out of striking range, and hollered out to the others: "Rattlesnake!" In my peripheral vision, I couldn't tell if the other hikers had heard me or not, and I didn't really want to risk taking my eyes off the snake to look and find out. I was afraid he would lunge for me the second I wasn't watching, and catch me by surprise. These snakes are death, and I've had several close encounters over the last few years. I took another step away and ventured a glance at the other hikers - they were frozen in their tracks and watching me intently. Ha! Okay, so I had their attention. I decided to pull the snake out from under the edge of the boulder with my five-foot long walking stick, so that everyone could see what a rattlesnake looks like close-up. It was to be an educational experience. Several hikers ventured closer and took photos. Others stayed far away and took photos. The rock was cool, and snakes being cold-blooded, the snake didn't resist my prodding much at all. He was actually rather tame. After a few minutes in the sun, the snake warmed up enough to finally coil and vibrate his rattle, putting on a show for everyone. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't really make a "rattle" sound, but rather more like a "buzzing" sound. Then it happened: my "educational" plan went awry. The land owner came over and announced that he was going to kill the snake, because he is liable for the safety of hikers in his canyon. He picked up a large rock, lifted it up above his head, and threw it down on the snake. He missed the snake's head and hit only the body, but then blood-lust took over in some of the other men, and soon it was a free-for-all of smashing rocks and walking sticks. The poor snake didn't have a chance. And all because of me! I should have kept my darned mouth shut, admired him on my own, and kept it my personal secret experience. I felt bad for the snake, believe it or not. That's the end of the canyon hike and adventure. Next up, we'll visit the private museum of artifacts found on this piece of land over the last 125 years. There is some fascinating stuff still to be seen. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SpeedRacer 1 #21 February 14, 2006 I kinda feel bad for the snake. Speed Racer -------------------------------------------------- Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cloudseeker2001 0 #22 February 14, 2006 QuoteQuoteFacinating stuff John. Thanks! I'll say! The landing areas look kind of sketchy though.... One track mind Zennie! "Some call it heavenly in it's brilliance, others mean and rueful of the western dream" Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cloudseeker2001 0 #23 February 14, 2006 I am not sure I would have been able to NOT express how much killing that snake would have pissed me off. Great thread John. "Some call it heavenly in it's brilliance, others mean and rueful of the western dream" Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pincheck 0 #24 February 14, 2006 thanks for sharing John Billy-Sonic Haggis Flickr-Fun Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JohnRich 4 #25 February 15, 2006 QuoteI am not sure I would have been able to NOT express how much killing that snake would have pissed me off. Well, it was his land, and therefore his snake. And I understood his concerns about not wanting people to be hurt on his land. So... if I was in his shoes, I might have thought the same way. If I was hiking that canyon weekly for fun, I might want to rid it of poisonous snakes also. It's just a different perspective, with one view from being a one-time guest, and the other view from being a frequent visitor. Those rattlesnakes are extremely dangerous, and we were several hours from the nearest hospital. I did save what may have been a water moccasin at my gun range last summer. Several guys were whacking at it and had already stunned it. I grabbed a shovel, scooped it up, and carried it off into the woods and let it go. What really gets me mad is when people kill a harmless snake, just for the idea that all snakes are evil. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
