Tag Archives: Hueco Tanks

Hueco Tanks State Historical Park

Just beyond the El Paso city limits to the east and just north of the Carlsbad Highway — the combined highways  U.S. Route 180 and U.S. Route 62 — is the site of a rather mystical place called Hueco Tanks, a Texas State Historical Park.  Here at Hueco Tanks, which lay just west of the Hueco Mountains, the visitor will find world-class bouldering, incredible birding, Mogollon pictographs dating back over 700 to 1,700 years, and even the adobe and rock wall remnants of a 19th Century Old West cowboy ranch.

Remnants of the Escontrias Ranch

Of course the ‘visitor’ on this excursion was my good friend David Williams, whom I met while briefly attending Clemson University way back in the early 1970s.  And I’m glad that we took this jaunt to Hueco Tanks because in all the years I’ve lived in El Paso I had never made it out this way.  Ursula had, with our two daughters many years ago, but not me.

The approach to Hueco Tanks bears little hint to what lies beyond this pile of rocks

Thus our Hueco Tanks excursion began the day following our trek to Old Mesilla, White Sands, and Cloudcroft.  This day’s journey would have Ursula and me escorting David not only to Hueco Tanks, but also El Paso’s famous Mission Trail (which I will show to you in two weeks’ time).

Hueco Tanks State Historical Park

David wanted to see Hueco Tanks in part because just a month prior we had hosted his charming and lovely daughter Professor Krista Williams for her bouldering expedition here.  Also arriving for that all to brief stay at Casa Wicker was Krista’s mother (and David’s lovely wife, or course) Evelyn.  Anyway, David was looking forward to seeing where Krista’s rock-climbing adventure took place.

Hueco Tanks State Historical Park

There is much to see and do here at Hueco Tanks, so we’ll be spending both this week and next visiting this incredible outcropping jutting above the surrounding desert, as well as taking a look at historical pictographs, the onsite wetlands, and the incredible flora those wetlands support.  Until Wednesday I’ll just leave you with the following hints of what is to follow in the blog posts ahead:

Remnants of the Escontrias Ranch

Hueco Tanks State Historical Park

Mesquite Tree

Hueco Tanks State Historical Park

Hueco Tanks State Historical Park

Hueco Tanks State Historical Park

Hueco Tanks flowers

By the way, if you’re reading this and other material authored by me on The Destinary website, this post was not “Posted on (fill in the date) | By destinary” as they’ve been erroneously claiming; this material was in fact reposted.  The Destinary have also been claiming the right to do so, without links back to the original and without full attribution (“by RDoug” and a nonworking link is not proper attribution) with a rather bizarre interpretation of U.S. copyright law in which they claim I’m responsible for changing my RSS feed settings so that they cannot skim my material for commercial purposes.  That would make reading my blog less convenient for you, which I’m not willing to do.  As such, I’ll be running this little diatribe on all travel related posts until they cease and desist, along with this:

© 2015 R. Doug Wicker (RDougWicker.com)
All right reserved — that includes you, Destinary

Final note:  Considering The Destinary is a site listed as owned by Sonia Bosquez-Platt of Indianapolis Tour & Travel, you may want to rethink doing business with her or her company.