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Quebrada Backcountry Byway

Presilla and Sierra De Las Canas Wilderness Study Areas

story and photos by Michael Richie

Getting Started

GETTING THERE From I-25 take the Escondida exit a mile or so north of Socorro, N.M. Head east and then north for a few miles to a right turn leading past Escondida Lake. Cross the Rio Grande and turn right or south and follow the east bank for about a half-mile to a sharp left turn, which is marked "Quebradas Back Country Byway". The 24-mile dirt route climbs east then turns south eventually connecting with NM 380 about 11 miles east of San Antonio. WHEN TO GO Year-round depending on recent weather and your tolerance to heat and cold. Avoid times during or just after significant precipitation as the muddy roads and flash flooding washes can be treacherous. FOR MORE INFO Contact: Kevin Carson, Socorro Field Office, BLM Recreation Planner, 505-838-1280

Inching along a narrow sandstone ledge, I gaze upward at a series of ancient pictographs. Time has softened the natural earth and plant pigments but several figures remain quite distinct. In one scene, two hunters, each with a single feather in their hair, clutch spears as they chase a running deer. Probably painted by the Piro Indians, who once had a flourishing pueblo culture in the Rio Grande Valley near Socorro, painted pictographs are very rare compared to the more common incised petroglyphs.

Downstream from the pictographs here in Arroyo del Tajo in the BLM Presilla Wilderness Study Area (WSA), the channel cuts through brilliant red shale covered with intricately eroded, honeycombed formations. Upstream it pinches into a slick-rock, slot canyon where tiger-stripped orange and purple crystalline walls tower abruptly a hundred feet above the polished, serpentine floor. The rock art, the brilliant sedimentary layers that seem to glow with their own inner light, the searing silence and total isolation remind me of my trek in Australia's "Red Center." But, of course, I am hiking classic New Mexico high-desert country.

Exceptional geologic diversity is the hallmark for both the Presilla and its neighbor the Sierra De Las Canas WSA. Stretching due east from Socorro, the BLM wilderness study areas climb from the Rio Grande valley up to a 6,200 feet high range of rounded peaks called the Loma De Las Canas. Totaling 21,518 acres, the areas lie on either side of the well-maintained, dirt Quebradas Backcountry Byway, which follows the Rio Grande River for about 20 miles providing sweeping views up and down the Rift valley from the Las Canas foothills.

Rock forms, colors, and textures in unprecedented variety make cross-country hiking here a continuous process of discovery. A long, complex geologic history has resulted in thick sedimentary beds containing more than a dozen well-defined limestone, sandstone, siltstone, shale, and gypsum layers, each eroded in its own unique manner.

The story chronicled in the rainbow layers began about 330 million years ago during the Pennsylvanian Period, when a shallow sea covered southern New Mexico. It continued uninterrupted for more than a hundred million years up to the Triassic Period as the ancestral Rockies rose in the north slowly pushing the sea southward. A mere 25 million years ago, extensive faulting and volcanism associated with the formation of the Rio Grande Rift Valley, thrust the sedimentary beds upward for erosion to sculpt the land. Surprisingly, these peaks are still rising about a fourth of an inch a year and the area remains the most seismically active in the state. All this activity has fractured the sedimentary layers into a multi-colored, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle that is a true delight to explore.

The north-south tending Quebradas road crosses five major canyons running east-west from the mountains to the Rio Grande. These branching desert pathways can be followed for miles in either direction for surprisingly easy passage through otherwise very rugged country. Hiking each unique arroyo offers a montage of striking rock formations, some rendered in brilliant primary colors, others in pastels and earth tones. Rock faces and giant boulders are inscribed by the elements with complex patterns or embossed with desert varnish glazes that would make a master potter take note.

Surface water is very rare and confined to a few springs or "tinajas" - sinkholes scoured from solid rock in the arroyos that hold rain water. But despite the rugged, arid terrain, ground water in the sandy-bottomed arroyos supports verdant vegetation corridors which in turn shelter more than 230 wildlife species. Over half are birds, guaranteeing that desert silence is broken each dawn and sunset by melody.

Early spring is a particularly pleasant time to explore the arroyos along the Quebradas Road. The brilliant sunshine provide welcomed warmth rather than uncomfortable heat, and the impossibly green, awakening plant life constitutes a minor miracle in these harsh surroundings. Chartreuse mesquite leaves envelope twisted black branches, spearmint green willows sport legions of trumpet-shaped, lavender flowers, bronze-green creosote bushes bloom in golden yellow, chollas hold deep purple bouquets, and the ocotillos are covered with vermilion splashes. Seeing the desert come alive like this never fails to provide me with a sense of optimism that all is right with the world.

Writer Michael Richie never tires of exploring local adventure spots, in particular places where his discoveries can help to increase public awareness about the effects of mining and development. In 1982, Richie's Sierra magazine article on New Mexico's Bisti Badlands lent support to the fight to stop the efforts to strip mine the Bisti and get it declared wilderness. His articles on Ojito Wilderness supported efforts to make it the first officially designated wilderness in New Mexico in 18 years.