Petroglyphs, Pecans and Pistachios!

Today, after visiting Valley of the Fires, we stopped at the Three Rivers Petroglyph Site, administered by the BLM and located 17 miles north of Tularosa, New Mexico on US 54.  We almost didn't visit the site, but we had an extra day in Alamogordo and thought this would be interesting.

Boy, were we surprised!  It's the most spectacular petroglyph site we've ever visited.  The site contains over 21,000 petroglyphs (rock carvings), carved by the Jornada Mogollon peoples 1,000 and more years ago.  The carvings are all located on a series of connected lava hills that give a broad view of the Tularosa Basin:

The hills are accessible to visitors via a rugged half-mile trail:

Most of the petroglyphs have been scratched into the patina of volcanic rock located near the tops of the hill and along a ridge connecting them.  Here's Kathy on the trail near the top --

-- and David standing atop the ridge:

The site is nestled against the foothills of the White Mountains.  A rainstorm that came through on February 1 and 2, and clouds that have followed it across the Tularosa Basin since then, coated the mountains with their first snow of the year:

From the petroglyph site, we could see over to the White Mountain range, and the Godfrey Hills to the right and in the midground in the photo below:

That's Nogal Peak covered in snow beyond the nearest of the Godfrey Hills:

Here, Lookout Mountain (elevation 11,580 feet), to the left, is covered in clouds.  Sierra Blanca Peak (elevation 11,973) is nearer to us and is covered at the top with a soft white blanket:

Here is a closer view of Lookout Mountain and Sierra Blanca Peak, located on the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation to the east of the site:

All of this is just prelude to the most spectacular part of the visit:  the extraordinarily large number of very high quality petroglyphs.  There were so many that we can't show you all of them, but you can see all 86 petroglyph photos we took at our Flickr website.

Here are some highlights.

The circle-and-dot motif is common.  According to the site brochure, over 10% of the petroglyphs are variations on this pattern:

This image of a bighorn sheep that has been pierced by three hunters' arrows is said to be the best known and most photographed petroglyph at the site.  The body of the sheep is filled with a Mimbres-style geometric design.

Masks or human faces are common petroglyphs at the site.  Here is one of our favorite, which used the shape of the rock to give 3D effect to the glyph:

This was perhaps the most artistic and realistic human face we saw:

This combination of glyphs intrigued us - possibly a lizard on the left, but apparently a human figure on the right, seeming to be in relation to, and gazing at, each other:

A great spider:

We saw many petroglyphs depicting hands or feet - sometimes alone and sometimes as part of or in conjunction with other symbols or designs.  However, this was the most interesting foot glyph, showing some imaginary person dancing across the rocks:

And here's an obviously recognizable goat:

This mysterious yin-yang symbol fascinated us:

Here is a realistic depiction of a leaping bighorn sheep:

And here's a roadrunner!

The BLM site includes an RV campground.  We wished we had known about the campground, because it would have been a fantastic experience to camp here and spend a few days poking around and discovering some more amazing petroglyphs - not to mention reading about the cultures that created them!

Of course, though, we must move from the sublime to the ridiculous.  On the way home, as Kathy was driving, David spotted this giant pistachio sculpture at McGinn's PistachioLand north of Alamogordo.  He yelled, "Stop the truck!"  Kathy obediently slammed on the brakes and almost got rear-ended by a 18-wheeler.  Oh well, what price beauty?