March 4, 2015 blog -
Canyon Rim Trail is listed as a challenging but rewarding hike that traverses the rims of Seminole Canyon and the Rio Grande corridor. After stopping in the Park Headquarters to understand their definition of “challenging”, we hit the 7.5 mile trail.
This is a pictograph of the trails at the trailhead.The wide blue curve at the bottom left is the Rio Grande. The narrower blue that starts in the middle and joins the Rio Grande is Seminole Canyon and the little, tiny foot with an “A” next to it, on the left, just above the center of the picture, is the trailhead. We had to walk a little way across the desert before we got to the Canyon rim.
Off we go. We saw no snakes.
There were several of these huge cairns along the trail and we added a stone to them.
At one point on the trail there was a wooden bridge the took us past the remnants of two rock rings that are all that remain of wickiup structures that were inhabited by Native Americans sometime between A.D. 500 and A.D. 1000.
These temporary shelters looked something like low teepees made of brush instead of skins. Stone tools discovered by archeologists suggest that hide processing was an important activity here.
Looking back up Seminole Canyon before there is much water in the river bed. Rock shelters can be seen on the right of the Canyon. As we walked along we could hear and see sheep (with binoculars) on the other side of the canyon.
Scenic Presa Canyon shoots off to the east as a branch of Seminole Canyon.
Looks a bit like a giant water slide to me.
At one point we could look across Seminole Canyon a see a huge “wall” that could be a canvas for pictographs.
This is an ocotillo. Kevin told us that they look dead but are very much alive. You can see the thorns along the branches. Native peoples used to beat these branches with their “working stick” to beat off the thorns and expose the inner fibers that they used to braid into twine and make nets. You might just be able to see some flowers at the tips of a few branches.
The end of Seminole Canyon as it joins the Rio Grande. Beautiful colored water.
Panorama picture of the end of the Canyon as it makes a curve to the east to join the Rio Grande.
At the confluence of Seminole Canyon and the Rio Grande is Panther Cave, a rock shelter used by the Desert Archaic culture about 8,900 - 1,300 years ago. Pecos River Style rock paintings extend along the back wall of the shelter and include a panther-like image that spans a full nine feet. From where we were standing, using binoculars, we could see the panther and his curving tail just below the protruding rock at the center of the picture.
This is Forrest Kirkland’s 1937 watercolor of part of the pictograph, published in “The Rock Art of Texas Indians.”
The panther is at the far right of the above grouping.
At the overlook there was an attempt by some one to explain the pictographs:
“Some archeologists believe that the Desert Archaic people were depicting the shaman’s journey to the Otherworld or spirit world. In their presumed belief system, the shaman convened with supernatural forces there on behalf of the larger group. Caves and rock shelters like Panther Cave served as sacred portals or passageways for the shamans. Some researchers believe that the panther represents an animal tutelary or guardian that symbolically protected the shaman and allowed him to be reborn into the Otherworld in altered form.”
We walked a little way along the Rio Grande and stopped to eat our lunch. This is looking northwest along the river with Mexico on the far side.
This is looking southeast. The water was a beautiful milky blue.
This little cactus plant was just below us as we ate our lunch. There are these little strawberry-like blooms on it.
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