Time Travel

Present day Interpretation of the Ancient Drawings

Seminole Canyon

4000 Year Old Drawings

Carved by the Wind

Woven sleeping Mats- 4000 years old

4000 Year Old Drawings

4000 Year Old Drawings

Seminole Canyon from the Ancient Living Area

Pictographs 

 Ancient Food Prep Area

Pecos River

The Real Building

The Wickfords Singing at the Stillwell Ranch 

THe High Class Stillwell RV Park

Sunrise at Stillwell

      We have been transported back in time. Our thought was to get up early and head for Big Bend, but when we got to the office to pay for the night before we heard of a ranger led trip to pictographs deep in the Seminole Canyon. We stood at the edge of the sharp drop off and the ranger told us to stare off into the distance and she described what we would have seen 12,000 years ago. It was so well done and so descriptive that I was transported to that time. I could see the 10-foot high grasses and watch the mammoths and saber tooth cats wander the fields and canyon. She brought us back to about 4000 years ago and then we started the climb down into the canyon. Everywhere we went she showed us how the native people used            the plants and rocks that we saw along the trail. At the bottom of the canyon, limestone sheets strewn with huge boulders, we could see the massive carved out cave half way up the steep cliff. The people used this area in springs and falls on route from summer and winter housing. The canyon itself was created only by the over flow back wash of the Pecos and Rio Grand rivers as they overflowed and pushed water over its banks and cut the deep channel miles up into the desert. Even from the canyon floor the pictographs were clear. Created between 4500 and 3500 years ago, they portray human figures and combinations of animals. There are also geometric shapes they supposed were portals to the spirit world. Some were multicolored and some simple reds. At the highest and largest opening was the shelf where the people lived. There is 30 feet deep of “human debris”. We could see woven sleeping mats poking out of the dirt. I just couldn’t believe that I was looking at the mattresses where people slept 4000 years ago. Everywhere we went our guide made what we saw rich and vibrant with details and splashes of color with words about what they knew about the peoples that lived here. We finished the walk but didn’t get enough and ended talking with our guide for an hour more on the cliff edge.

      From there we continued our drive to Big Bend. I sit now in a gravel parking lot in the middle of the desert, the Stillwell hall of Fame a hundred yards away. Hallie Stillwell was a woman rancher whom no one thought a woman could last in the harsh “man’s world” of cow raising. We drove off the main road, hoping we had the right road, signs were missing and descriptions ambiguous. On and on we drove through desert, knowing that this road would eventually end up in Mexico. One brick building, two shacks, and three gravel parking lots in the middle of nowhere. It is the closest park to Big Bend and because of Spring Break, we wanted to arrive at the national park early the next morning. It was only one night, but I was pretty disappointed. We parked and as I entered the office, something happened. There was such a feeling of friendliness. This feeling continued through everyone we met. At 7:30 we met in the museum where a couple sang country songs to, it must have been everyone staying there that night. From Tanya Tucker to Gene Autry we were serenaded into the night. Finally we left the building into the dark still desert air and to our welcome recently made mattresses.

   The morning broken, but before the sun, a walk into the desert brought nothing but soft nourishing non-human sounds. Fresh and revitalizing the air crisp and the birds lively, we watch the sun rise.  

   Next stop Big Bend.