RattleSnake Hill - speculation welcome, new pics 06/30/2009

[desertmoons]

So I have been thinking and researching a bit. I think there should be a spanish trail in a certain area in new mexico. So today I stopped by Rattlesnake Hill. Not its real name just what I suspect is up there.

Here is what I found so far. Next week I will check it out a little closer. Not the best pictures but am interested in any comments or thoughts you might have.

In term of picture quality, after a lot of investigation after my ae1 finally croaked (so sad), it seems that the nikon d200 is the camera that looks closest in picture quality to what i use to get. Well i can not get a d200 just now so broke down and got a point and shoot kodak.

These were first pics i took with it from rather far away.

Anyway...I think there is enough here to make me just curious enough to brave RattleSnake Hill. What do you think? Not looking for treasure ..just history.

 

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[desertmoons]

Re: RattleSnake Hill - just a few pics - comments, speculation welcome

this is picture 2 and 3.

 

[desertmoons]

Re: RattleSnake Hill - just a few pics - comments, speculation welcome

rsh4


then just a bit north of these rock formations i noticed this
rshwindow1
I am most likely wrong but it looks to me like there might be petroglyphs in lower right and also an outlined up arrow about half way down and slightly to the right that might have some carvings.... What do you think?

 

[desertmoons]

Re: RattleSnake Hill - just a few pics - comments, speculation welcome

the last few pics are rock formations around the "windows"
rshwindowcloseup1


another close up


rshturfuzzt


rshwindowrock

 

[Old Dog]

Re: RattleSnake Hill - just a few pics - comments, speculation welcome

Desertmoons,

I think what you have warrents looking into.
A trail for sure,
Find out where it goes.

 

[desertmoons]

Re: RattleSnake Hill - just a few pics - comments, speculation welcome

Uggg..i thought you might say that ...but there are rattle snakes up there i am sure!

Do i haveta

Hehe..well i guess i will take a stout hiking stick with me. Its interesting how looking over pics you see more and more interesting things to check out.

On the other hand, it is easy to lose count of things to check out. When is a rock just a rock? In most cases i am sure it is just that...like that fuzzy looking turtle.

I'd been thinking about this area for about a year. About 10 miles away was a north south trail. I got to thinking there must be one closer on this side of the "range" for those that did not want to take the well known official trail. Then I thought about how not far from rattlesnake hill there is a valley with water. That seemed to be a likely destination for anyone coming out of the parched mountains or who wanted to keep a low profile.

So today I made a quick trip to check it out where i thought the trail should end (or begin) and these pics are the result.

Anyway it was fun and i look forward to more fun next week. Assuming no buzztails. Whether man made or not it looks like there is a lot to investigate!

Thanks Old Dog.

 

[Old Dog]

Re: RattleSnake Hill - just a few pics - comments, speculation welcome

Start slow and ask questions.
Take LOTS of pictures and learn as much about signs as you can.
You can always expect a sign (if Spanish) to be confirmed by marks not natural.
These marks will be hard to find at first but will get a bit easier as time progresses.

Hints for a good day...
Take plenty of water. carry enough and keep some in the vehicle as well, just in case.
a walking stick will push a snake out of the way. Use it.
If cell service is available, always carry your phone, (even if it isn't on) you may need it.
Keep a small journal with a pencil handy to record your signs and symbols for research later.
Most important of all don't over extend early on.
Trekking in the desert is work, and if you aren't used to it you will do yourself harm.

remember...to eat an elephant takes many small bites.
Have fun.

Thom

 

[desertmoons]

Re: RattleSnake Hill - just a few pics - comments, speculation welcome

Thanks Thom,

I will pick up a note book for sure and I have the other gear already. It can be brutal in the summer and i always carry a gallon of water in the trunk just in case.

Here are a couple more pics that caught my eye. The first because it looks like a bird with the feet,,or a frog...however it does not look carved or man made to me. I'll add it to my list to hike too though.



The second is likely a booby trap! What actually caught my eye today is that boulder to the upper left seemed to be the only one around that gave me a feeling of being out of place, or tending to the opposite direction of everything else. Its the one that seems to have a couple of eye like dark spots on it on the right side. When i looked at the pic though, i notice right up the slight right of middle there are a series of circular things. A spot on a rock, the trigger for the "booby trap" and above that what might be circular marks on the rock face and bolder. This could be image distortion or those could be plants..but it caught my eye.

 

[Springfield]

Re: RattleSnake Hill - just a few pics - comments, speculation welcome

Hey, DM, have you ever visited Chiracahua National Monument? How about Bisti Badlands? City of Rocks?

 

[desertmoons]

Re: RattleSnake Hill - just a few pics - comments, speculation welcome

Thank you prospector and dsty. Springfield i have not been those places though have been to garden of the gods where your imagination will let you see a lot of things in those very neat rock formations

The main thing that made me think there might be something here is the "bird" or "arrow" or "pointer" on top of the peak seems to be propped up on a smaller rock as you can see in one pic. Thats is a bit unusual around here. And it is pointing in the general direction i had previously theorized a pointer would point too.

So it fits my preconceived notion..which..well i am not sure that is good or bad hehe.

The other thing is the "windows". On the right one, one of the angles seems perhaps much straighter compared to the rock in the surrounding area.That,plus if it is actually a man made window, which is unknown at this time,. i already know what I should see when i peek through at least one of them. A specific landmark of sorts.

Anyway i have no ego when it comes to this stuff. if you think it is just a pile of rocks just say so..it is all good and educational. And as i do explore it in greater depth i will post what i find and we can all find out what was on target and what was not. So blast away ) It can only be good to have a variety of opinions.

Especially if you folks see anything particular in those pics that i should check out let me know,. No secrets here. I've a few things marked for getting a closer look at but i am sure there are things i have missed. If it is the start of a trail i expect it to be of historical interest...with of course the small possibility of it leading to something else.

From the pics i do think there are some petroglyphs to be found at the very least.

 

[CanadianTrout]

Re: RattleSnake Hill - just a few pics - comments, speculation welcome

Thanks for sharing desertmoons! I like those pics.

I'm no expert and probably pointing out the obvious but a couple things caught my eye. What do you guys think?

 

[pyledriver]

Re: RattleSnake Hill - just a few pics - comments, speculation welcome

DM, my 02 as a complete noob is this. Snake chaps are cheap! If I had a bead on anything that interesting around here I'd go out for a looksee-even though our temps are around 102-105 right now! Using all precautions of course...

 

[truckinbutch]

Re: RattleSnake Hill - just a few pics - comments, speculation welcome

Thanks Thom,

I will pick up a note book for sure and I have the other gear already. It can be brutal in the summer and i always carry a gallon of water in the trunk just in case.

Here are a couple more pics that caught my eye. The first because it looks like a bird with the feet,,or a frog...however it does not look carved or man made to me. I'll add it to my list to hike too though.




The second is likely a booby trap! What actually caught my eye today is that boulder to the upper left seemed to be the only one around that gave me a feeling of being out of place, or tending to the opposite direction of everything else. Its the one that seems to have a couple of eye like dark spots on it on the right side. When i looked at the pic though, i notice right up the slight right of middle there are a series of circular things. A spot on a rock, the trigger for the "booby trap" and above that what might be circular marks on the rock face and bolder. This could be image distortion or those could be plants..but it caught my eye.

My nervous eye picks that rounded,flatsided tapered rock at between 3 and 4 o'clock from the rock you point out.What it supports and an absence of spall downhill that looks like it fractured from that little rock doesn't look right to me.Novice opinion.Older hands can tell you more.

 

[Leones Corazon]

Re: RattleSnake Hill - just a few pics - comments, speculation welcome

Desert Moons...in front of the turtle is a large head looking straight up. I see more and it is of an ancient flavor that thom and i are quite used to seeing here in colorado. Send me the fullsize pics and i will take some time here int he next few days and i will return them edited to give you something to go on if you wish.

DW

 

[desertmoons]

Re: RattleSnake Hill - just a few pics - comments, speculation welcome

Thanks for the feeed back everyone. It brought some food for thought!
Heres a trip report. I'm having trouble more than a few pics at a time so this will go over several posts.

08/05/08
Well this will be fun. Gosh kind of hot out here. Good thing i brought water! Actually it is rather hot indeed. The rocks soak up the heat. Good thing i have a broad brim hat! And water.


I've surfed the net a lot but never actually been feet on the ground looking for things. I decided starting off I will look for things that seem out of place, a pointy rock where rocks are round, and vice versa. Also petroglyphs or carvings.

My goal today is to explore this:


It just seems an interesting area. In my blow up verions of the photo there seems to be something odd toward the middle right of the picture. What ARE those roundish things? Eyes? And above them when i zoom in..that rock has sort of a familiar shape then above that surely that is a carving or circle! Rampant curiosity strikes again. I want to find out!


The path is upward at around 6000 feet.

Shouldn't be hard! Well it is kind of hot, time for some water. Oh... whats this? A pointy rock! l..well I'll take a picture. The orange area might be carved but i sure can not make it out. Maybe the photo will reveal something I can not see. (it does not.)

trail1


What? Change batteries? Already? Hmm..I've only taken about 40 pics since I bought the camera. Of course I did leave the camera on over night.....

This old path seems to go up, above almost everything I saw my first day out, here. I will be looking down on the site I am trying to find. I wonder if I will be able to recognize it from here.

You know, it is really hot out here.


continued

 

[desertmoons]

Re: RattleSnake Hill - just a few pics - comments, speculation welcome

Whats this? Yay! I found a pile of nothing!. Still it abuts my theorized trail,has a bit of a pointy side to it pointing toward that pointer up high.

That lower sharper edge formation just might be carved - doesn't look it to me but one never knows.

The deafening silence when I post it will me know.

Because that part looks very different from the rest of the rock and because there are not any other sharp objects in the immediate area (including myself) , I'll take a picture.


trail2


Gosh this may not be a piece of cake after all. I sure thought after those terrific pics of last week it would be easer. That rock looked smooth as a river stone in the pics - so would be easy to pick out any markings.

Up close it is a different story.

Most of that smooth looking rock in my pictures of last week is actually granite or gneiss (Have to pull out the field guide when i get home) with mica, chunky quartz and veins of quartz and who knows what else. It seems to weather in deep grooves and lines, and unless something was carved really deep, I can not make out the pattern.

Also there there are chunks of harder solid black materiel in it, which often weathers out as a point or knob. Or in a lense or eye shape.

I look around. There are a lot of those, hundreds, thousands...sigh. I wonder if what I saw in last weeks pictures were these black lenses...

How on earth do the pros make out whether something like this is natural or not!

trail3



continued

 

[desertmoons]

Re: RattleSnake Hill - just a few pics - comments, speculation welcome

Guess I will have some water and think about it. I pour some over my head too. Just seems like a good idea. That felt good so i soak down my shirt too. I bet its 100 up here.

I estimate I've gone maybe a mile, and probably one or two miles to go.

Well heres another rock. I know in some other posts I saw a few indented carvings that I would have thought natural so lets take a pic
.
Its off the path I am on, but not too far. If it was carved, the 300-400 years of rain and wind have taken its toll. Looks natural to me, but so does everything I see, now I am up close


trail4.


Onward and upward. The call of the trail and desire to know what is on the other side of that rise ,and the next one and the next one...have me in their thrall.

I glance at this rock with a knowing smile. You may be a marker or you may have just lost a piece of yourself, but you are pointing the wrong way. Even though it is like an oven out - did I mention that? - I will travel on.


trail5


continued

 

[desertmoons]

Re: RattleSnake Hill - just a few pics - comments, speculation welcome

Hey - there's that bird or frog I saw and i am a lot closer now. Doesn't look as good this close. Looks to be 200 yards straight uphill though and I think my site is downhill at about a mile ahead. "I'll pluck your feathers in october when it cools down birdy" and dump some more water over my head.


trail7


And here is another for october. I wonder if that orange area has some carvings or petroglyphs on it. If so they are pretty weathered.



Every time I see something - like petroglyphs from a distance on this path, well when I get up to the rock any pattern is lost in the rough jumble and planes of the rock face. I wonder if there are some useful things you can see ONLY through a photograph.

continued

 

[desertmoons]

Re: RattleSnake Hill - just a few pics - comments, speculation welcome

This fellow below is likely natural.The illusion of an eye is spoiled when one notices an outcropping on his head that seems to have just weathered that way. However he is pointing to the sharp faced rock area in the next pic.

Note the sharped face vertical standing rock that is definitely whiter than surrounding rocks in real life. He seems different than surrounding rocks. Looks like it is wearing a rock wig. The rock toward the middle seems to have a lot of white colored lines on it. Maybe a petroglyph or maybe natural rock or maybe I am on the verge of heat stoke and hallucinating.


trail9


trail11



continued

 

[desertmoons]

Re: RattleSnake Hill - just a few pics - comments, speculation welcome

Ah made it sort of to the top..just one more rise in the distance. I stagger around a bit looking for my site and a bit of shade, and run across this. Looks like a chunk of rock fell out. I'm doubtful of it being a marker because of the color of the rock in the hole. Maybe too new?

trail12


I scan the downward slopes...knowing if i climb down i will have to climb back up. Nothing looks familiar. I will need to triangulate that site somehow from the original spot I took last week's picture and come back another day. Maybe terra server will have a better picture of the area than what i could find on google.

The climb down would be okay. The climb up brutal. I think about my regrettable childish cruelty long ago when I used a magnifying class on ants in the summer just to see them shrivel up. I know how they feel.

Right now I feel like nothing more than getting out of the blasted sun and taking a siesta! I find a patch of shade by a big rock, check for critter holes and rattlesnakes, take a break, and have some more water.

The good thing about new mexico is the temperature drops a lot - maybe 10 degrees or more when you go into the shade because it is so dry out here.

Except when it starts to rain.Which it did. Suddenly. Then lightning.

I get up out of my cozy nook and tried to remember the rule when in the mountains. I think it was sit on a rock and you will be okay if lightning strikes nearby. Well it was striking perhaps 1/4 to 1/2 mile away heading my way, and here i was at the TOP of a prominent rise.

The thunder rolled through the canyons and reverberated through the passes. Felt good at first - finally i was cooling down. And watching Mother Nature's work is one of the greatest pleasures in life.

"Rain never lasts long out here", I thought "Usually 15 to 30 minutes". Then the sun will come out and my clothing will dry out in a jiffy.

.
1 hour later.

Alright already! I'm cool,in fact starting to feel a might chilled. I'll just head back - I step out of the some what protected rock pile and a cold wet gust makes me think better. Probably 20-30 mile per hour rain driven gusts. Temperature is probably 70 or less. Rain feels very cold. And here comes more lighning.

about 2 hours later.

Finally.... it has stopped. I'm out of twizzlers, the sun is setting and the lightning and wind has moved north.

I hightail it (squishily plod actually) back to my car. Wet, bedraggled, tired.

But I liked it up there. The silence, the ferns! Yes ferns I found in a protected rock nook. The rocks and the cactus. I learned photos can be very deceiving and better planning will save time and grief. It is a spare land but has its own sort of beauty.

Here are a couple of other pics of what I think are natural rock formations that can fool you from afar

trail13


continued