At the time I discovered the mysterious path through the trees, I was sneaking along a fence, trying to avoid a mysterious RV parked back in the bushes by the side of the dirt track we call “Davenport Road” because of the old sofa lying in the sagebrush.
A little more than halfway on my exercise walk, this had become an increasingly tricky stretch to navigate. Not too long ago my wife and I came out of the woods to find some serious humping going on in the back seat of a black Dodge sedan. I don’t think either of us grasped what was happening at first, but we quickly did an about-face and decided we’d gone far enough that day. “Never walk past a guy with his underwear down around his ankles,” I told her afterwards.
But what about the motorhome? It had been there for several days, and none of this was public property. (Yes, I was trespassing myself—everyone does, it’s like the Code of the West.) Maybe whoever was in the RV was only squatting for a few days. Then again, what if it were a mobile meth lab or rolling bordello, or a gaggle of fleeing Anabaptists armed to the teeth?!? The only other thing I could think of was that the local land grant had hired security guards, but that would be over the top for New Mexico. Be that as it may, I pretended I was Kit Carson and set off cross-country to avoid a confrontation. In the process, I found a 10mm wrench (?) and the path above, which led to this!
In a place where there are no houses, no paved roads, and hardly anything man-made except occasional beer cans and thousand-year-old potsherds, someone had built an elaborate, rock-lined path that led to a rock the size of a large footlocker, perfect to sit on, oriented toward the west. The path began at a fence line, oddly, with a rusty tin can sculpture-object hanging in a piñon tree to mark the spot. It didn’t look like anyone had walked back there in years, however. No footprints, nothing. And here’s the view from this extremely favored spot:
What you don’t know is that I walked early today, starting off at 2:00 p.m. without my camera. Yup. I found all this, went home, then came back four hours later with my gear so I could document it, so excited I hiked twice! All told, I must have spent at least two and a half hours tromping around in the boonies avoiding axe murderers, about four miles, I figure. Up and down the sides of arroyos, navigating by my shadow, with anthills and sheep bones for trail markers. When I got home this evening, I had tiny cactus spines in the back of my leg and had to sit down with the tweezers.
A lot of work went into building that path, and someone here must know this place. An artifact of the ’60s, I’ll bet, like others I’ve uncovered. But hippies never would have moved that rock, so it had to have already been there naturally or was placed there long ago…
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How blessed is that !!!
I love it when things like that happen.
Sis might have been guiding you……
nice place to meditate, ruminate and fumigate
The spot is actually quite close to “Davenport Road,” which didn’t exist when the trail was built. Back then, it would have been VERY isolated. As it is, I don’t know who could find it.
But yes, I love that kind of discovery, too! Good for all that stuff.
‘meditate, ruminate and fumigate’ … I like that Carol. I need some of that.
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