Hikers, historians, naturalists and climbers all have something to celebrate in Hueco Tanks State Park.
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American dream are visible. The Senor Dollar store sits just two blocks down from Dollar Tree; a Pronto Lube car servicer out-competes its kitty corner English-language equivalent, Jiffy Lube. It’s a city defined by the Rio Grande River to the south and one-third of the El Paso-Juarez-Las Cruces region that makes up the western hemisphere’s largest bilingual, binational workforce. Everywhere throughout the city are lines—demographic, political, and property lines, most of them visible and most of them proud. One of the most curious of these lines is the one situated on the side of Road 2775, a 20-minute drive east of El Paso. Every morning, beginning around 6:30 a.m., and continuing to build until around 10 a.m., there’s a line of cars patiently facing the gate of Hueco Tanks State Park and Historical Site. Hueco Tanks is an anomaly in so many ways. Its cultural significance is defined by the interaction of two natural elements: water and rock. The park boundary surrounds four stone hills shaped by wind and water, cradling massive hollows (“huecos” in Spanish) that capture and hold rainwater (“tanks”) long past the monsoon season. The tanks range from footstep-sized puddles to arenas that can hold up to 50,000 gallons of water. The unique availability of water has created a mid-desert oasis for flora, fauna, and human activity to flourish in unique ways. Early human influences date back to 1150 AD when the Jornada Mogollon people began farming at the base of the rock hills. Their residence is marked by the large collection of painted masks, or faces, on the walls of the rocks. A!er the arrival of the Spanish to North America various groups fled to Hueco Tanks—the Kiowa, Mescalero Apache, Comanche, Tigua and the people of Isleta del Norte Pueblo. Their paintings, also on display on the rocks, depict early European influence: horses, weapons, European-style clothing mingling with their vivid illustrated stories of tradition and change. Thousands of years later, in 1970, the state of Texas took over the 860acre recreational area from El Paso Country and opened Hueco Tanks State Park and Historical Site. To protect its ecological and archeological assets, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department issued a Public Use Plan in 2000 that limits the park’s capacity to 160 people in “guided access areas” and 70 people in “self-guided areas” per day and requires every visitor to watch an orientation video. The measure was instated as a way to recover the land and its assets from the sometimes subtle, sometimes elicit deterioration since opening to the public and to protect it for continued access. “The restrictions mean you have to plan ahead a bit—you cannot just roll out of bed and go wherever you feel like climbing or hiking that day,” says Melissa Strong, a climber, ranger, and owner of land outside of the park. “It’s a change from our normal approach to the outdoors, but it helps protect the park, the rock art and artifacts, and the delicate desert environment.” tribeza.com
| MAY 2017
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