What to do in Alamogordo? Visit Three Rivers Petroglyph Site

 

We chose Alamogordo as a place to stay because it was the closest to White Sands NP. What it is famous for, however – and I hadn't been aware of that – is its association with the Trinity Project, the first-ever detonation of an atomic bomb in 1945 in the nearby White Sands Missile Range.

Humans have lived here for at least 11,000 years and left many traces. We decided to look at the ancient rather than the more recent history of the area. About half an hour's drive north from Alamogordo is Three Rivers Petroglyph Site where, in an area about 50 acres in size, more than 21,000 petroglyphs have been found and carefully charted. They date back from the time of the Jornada Mogollon people who lived here intermittently between about 200 and 1450 CE before disappearing completely. The reasons for their disappearance are not conclusive: was it drought, heat and famine, war, a combination of those or something else altogether? Just as much of a mystery is the meaning behind at least part of their rock carvings. Some are very clear: sheep, birds, lizards, human faces. Others very likely are of spiritual origin. There are no known descendants in the area any longer, and the interpretation remains speculation.

We decided to visit the site yesterday and spent a few hours in the afternoon climbing up the petroglyph trail behind the visitor centre. The amount of carvings is indeed stunning, the quality of many of them amazing, considering how many years they have endured. They were made with stone tools, some by scratching through the dark (oxidized) patina on the exterior of the rock, some by pecking through it using two rocks like hammer and chisel.

 The view as we climbed up the trail, which is about a mile in length, is stunning: to the east towers the Sierra Blanca, some of the mountains still showing traces of snow, to the west stretches the Tularosa Basin with White Sands NP with the backdrop of the San Andres and Oscura mountains. During the night we had listened to the howl of the wind in our motel, and we struggled against it on the hike. Looking over to where we had been the day before we saw huge clouds of dust moving, obscuring the mountains behind. Now we were glad that we had changed our plans and visited White Sands the day before. It seemed likely that visitors wouldn't even be allowed to enter the park under these conditions.

After returning to the visitor centre parking lot we walked the short cemented trail to the south leading to the prehistoric village where the Jornada Mogollon people lived. Here a replica of a pit house and later above-ground structures showed where these people had settled. The climate must have been quite different, with more precipitation, since they were practicing agriculture and settled here for such a long period of time.

We decided to check out 'historic downtown' after we returned but found nothing very interesting. It didn't look as if the efforts to revive it were overly successful in making it more attractive to visiting tourists. If that is the case now, at about the busiest time for visitors to the area, it likely won't be much different through the rest of the year. “White Sands Boulevard”, the main thoroughfare, on the other hand, on which our motel was located is one long line of fast-food restaurants, likely catering to tourists passing through to and from White Sands National Park. 

Another attraction - one we decided not to visit - is McGinn's PistachioLand. Pecans and, to a lesser degree pistachios, are grown all throughout southern New Mexico, and it would have been interesting to learn about them, but the strong winds would have made a tour of the orchards very unpleasant, and when we briefly stopped in their parking lot people were lined up to get into the gift shop. Here is a photo of one of the orchards close to the visitor centre.