El Morro

El Morro on an ominous day

I headed out the next morning to El Morro National Monument. Located on an ancient east-west trail in western New Mexico, it is a sandstone promontory with a natural pool of water at its base. 

A striking formation

 What's interesting is that the pool is not a spring, but is actually a catchment of rainwater, like a cistern. 

Rain catchment

For centuries travelers and animals stopped here for water as they passed through. Some liked it so much, they settled here.

People lived on top between 1275 to 1350 A.D. and it still boasts the remains of a what was an 875-room pueblo

where up to 1500 people lived. 

Ruins on the mesa top

 Spanish explorers named the mesa "El Morro," which means "the headland," because the mesa stands out strikingly in the landscape. 

A most unusual formation

The Zunis call it "A'ts'ina," or 'place of writings on the rock" and Anglo-Americans call it "Inscription Rock" because for centuries, travelers have left petroglyphs ...

Petroglyphs

and, later, signatures, names, dates and stories carved in the rock ... 

Inscriptions go back to Spanish explorers

In 1906, U.S. federal law prohibited further carving. 

Don't write on the rocks! The mountains are watching you

I arrived as the sky clouded over -- the first hint of rain on my trip. But, since none was predicted, I started on the loop hike to the pool, the rock and the mesa top. 

 As I reached the pool and inscriptions, the sky became more threatening and, since this was the first time I had hiked without my rain jacket, I went back to the Visitor Center and asked the Ranger about prospects. He said lightning was rare (a concern since the hike traverses the top of the mesa. 

Mesa top

But, he suggested I do the hike in the opposite-from-suggested direction since it is steeper and gets to the top faster, thus allowing me to come down as the weather advanced. 

The trail goes in the Canyon and to the top

One of the cool things you can see from the top is a box canyon. It was windy (very, very windy; windy enough that I was leery of going too close to the edge) and I got sprinkled on by about 10 raindrops. There wasn't any lightning, but I still question whether I was an idiot for making myself the highest thing in the area. Oh, well. 

Scary

As you come down, you can see a formation that looked to me like a giant bird or lizard climbing the mesa. It's an fascinating place that few people know about.

It does look like a creature scaling the rock wall

Trip Date: June 7-13, 2014