Hueco Tanks

July 1959

Thirty miles northeast of the city of El Paso, Texas, there is a small area that is nestled inside the vertical rock walls of the Hueco Mountains, called Hueco Tanks. It is a small oasis in the middle of the desert, and it derives its name from the Spanish word, “Hueco”, which means “basin”. There are depressions on the flat, limestone rocks that hold small amounts of water that have supported the local wildlife, pioneers, and ancient men for millennia. The presence of ancient man has been verified by the identification of stone artifacts that date back to 2000 BC, but the most awesome aspect of this place is the beautiful pictographs on the vertical rock walls. I had the good fortune to witness and photograph some of these before too many people were aware that this place existed. A few of the beautiful works of art had been slightly defaced before I first saw them in the summer of 1959. At that time the only access to the area by vehicle was a narrow jeep road from the south that was cut through the rugged rocks and desert. My access to the site was by walking two miles through jagged arroyos and by scaling vertical rock cliffs into the wilderness area. It was a trip that was well worth the effort. Many years after I made my trip to the site, the State of Texas acquired the land, made it a historical park, and protected the entire site from further vandalism.

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Playing in the army band at Fort Bliss, Texas, was arguably the best duty in the military. It was an honor to be associated with the type of intelligent musicians with which I served, and our small unit was like a family. The El Paso area also afforded a wide variety of off-duty entertainment, and it was particularly suited for me, since I had grown up outdoors in Texas and could tolerate extreme weather. Fort Bliss Military Reservation was situated on the desert floor between the Franklin and Hueco Mountain ranges, and it extended 90 miles into the desert of southern New Mexico. I had free run of the desert in my off-duty hours (except for the guided missile range) and most of the mountain ranges on each side of the base. Several of my friends were outdoorsmen, but the most unlikely one of that group became my closest buddy, and we had plenty of things outdoors to enjoy together.

Herb Zettler was a brilliant pianist in our unit, a career army master sergeant, and a first class outdoorsman from New Jersey. We became close friends while playing together in various off-base, dance bands at night. He was about my dad’s age, and he had spent two years in the jungles of New Guinea during the war. He knew what outdoor living was all about. We had become amateur spelunkers, exploring abandoned mine shafts and many of the natural caves in the area. Herb told me about the Hueco Tanks site and its pictographs, and we decided to see if we could find them.

It was already hot before noon the Saturday morning that we loaded the car for our trip to Hueco Tanks. We were both members of the Ft Bliss Wildlife Society: this gave us authority to carry firearms on the thousands of barren, desert acres that were between the military base and the mountain range. I saw Herb take his holstered, .38 caliber revolver from the trunk of his car, and put it in the small back pack that he often carried in the field. (There was always the chance of a poisonous snake encounter). He was wearing civilian Khakis and a straw hat; I was wearing army fatigues and a soft, fatigue cap. We both had army pistol belts with canteens attached, and we always kept two extra gallons of water in the car in case of emergency. Other than the pistol, snacks, camera, and extra cigarettes, we kept the back pack as light as possible, because of the distance and the rugged terrain.

The trip across the desert from the barracks to the base of the mountains was about ten miles of winding, seldom-used roads that were often no more than two ruts through the sand. Herb’s 1952 Plymouth had few traction problems in the small sand dunes that we encountered, as we drove east across the desert. Our journey by car came to an abrupt end, as our road was terminated by an arroyo and a barbed wire fence. The fence ran roughly north-south, and it bordered the edge of the desert and the base of the Hueco Mountains. The fence posts were rotting and two of the three strands of barbed wire were lying on the ground. I don’t think this fence will pass army inspection. We climbed down a steep ledge on one side of the arroyo, and we found it to be easy walking in the sand and pebbles that were in the arroyo floor, as we began our ascent of the mountain. The arroyo began to meander through vertical, rock cliffs that became taller with each few hundred yards of walking. It was almost noon, and the sun was shining straight down on us; the tall cliff walls blocked off any breeze; and we both were soaked with perspiration.

We stopped as the arroyo suddenly ended at a dry waterfall. We managed to scale a 20 foot cliff on the side of the arroyo, and as I stood erect, I could tell that we had reached a small, mesa-like area that was quite different from the rugged terrain that we had just climbed. As we walked down toward a level area below, I sensed that we had found our objective: desert grasses, creosote bush, and mesquite trees began to appear among the many varieties of cactus. There had to be a water supply to support this type of vegetation. The narrow canyon became wider, and Herb and I split up to explore its opposite sides. The canyon floor became greener, and I finally saw what I had suspected: on a flat limestone slab, there was a small pool of water that was shaded from the sun by a rock over-hang. There were several of these pools, and I could not determine if the water was trapped from the scant rainfall, or if it was spring fed. No matter: it was there, and it had likely been there off and on for centuries. I could tell that the vertical cliffs were honey-combed with natural caves and depressions. These must have been used for shelter and protection, since man first set foot in this place…Then I saw the pay-off…To my amazement the vertical cliffs were adorned with pictographs and stone etchings! Hello Hueco Tanks!

Herb and I spent the better part of two hours exploring the area. We climbed into several of the larger, accessible caves on the cliff faces, and we didn’t find anything unexpected in them. The larger caves had ceilings that were smoked from ancient camp fires; there was bat guano in the floors; and there were sticks and small bones that were left by the desert rats. There were a variety of birds in the area, as opposed to only a few lizards that we saw on the rocks as we made our way up the mountain. I looked for stone artifacts, but I found none. My greatest disappointment was having brought a cheap camera with only 24 colored exposures, and there were several hundred pictographs of all shapes, sizes, and ages on the cliff walls. Some of the pictographs were easily identifiable. There were hand-drawn pictures of snakes, animals, and terrestrial objects. I regretfully took all the pictures in the camera before I looked at all the other potential objects that I could have photographed. Each pictograph had a meaning, a direction, or it was possibly done as a means of religious communication; each one was likely placed there by a different person, for a different reason, and at a different time. I felt like I was looking at a message board in a religious place that was written in a foreign language.

As we were preparing to make our trip back over the mountain to our car, I witnessed a sight that left me in total disgust. One of the pictographs had been defaced by an ignorant curiosity seeker who preceded us to this place and chiseled his initials in the stone cliff. In only a few minutes he had defaced a treasure that had weathered the centuries and could never be replaced. No wonder they have to guard the irreplaceable objets d’ art in museums. Some people consider ignorance and stupidity a virtue. I’ll be sure to make no mention of this place to anyone.

It was easy to find our way back to the car. We never needed a compass: the sky was always clear, and we could always orient ourselves with respect to the position of the sun and the mountains. I have also found that my trip is always shorter when I am going home. We were tired, scratched up, and almost dehydrated by the time we returned to the car. The sun was setting behind the Franklin Mountains, as we started back across the desert to our barracks at the base. We talked about all the things of beauty that we had seen at Hueco Tanks that day. The lights of the city of El Paso and the lights of Fort Bliss were beginning to take hold in the twilight. I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit a place of historical value and beauty. I hoped the site would come under government control, so that it could be viewed and enjoyed by the public, without being subjected to further desecration.

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The National Speleological Society has this motto: “Take nothing but pictures. Leave nothing but carefully placed footprints. Kill nothing but Time.”

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