I couldn’t stand it………that thing’s been preying on my alleged mind. Today, I had a couple of errands to take care of in Albu-Quirky, and didn’t have to be back in Santa Fe till 4:00 PM. The errands went fairly quickly, so on the way home I turned left (north & west) up Hwy 550 again, but this time watching closely with a more educated eye.

Only about ½ way to Cuba, about 30 miles out on a kink in the highway near the wide spot of San Ysidro, I was watching closely as I crested a rise. There, between 2 ridges was my target. It’s beautiful………….

Kinda reminds you of the tower in “Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind,” doesn’t it ?? Just a few miles farther up the highway, a paved county road goes left, to the southwest to the “not even” village of Cabezon. Just a few raggedy mobile homes and ½ melted old adobe structures. The paved road turns right after a few miles toward Torreon. Haven’t seen that yet…….my road was the dirt and gravel one that headed straight toward “my” mountain. All this shows on the really excellent AAA “Indian Country” map - far better than their state map, tho’ it covers much more territory.

Approaching the mountain, the road crosses a dry wash of the Rio Puerco, a major river (when it’s running) in this area. These fascinate me, too, and I love to explore them. This is looking downstream…………..

In spite of the “Bisti Boondoggle” the other day, the ol’ Lar is fairly desert smart - most of the time - and I’ve learned to look around before taking things for granted. Aha……this look upstream ended my trip right there…………..

That rain from the thunderstorm up there is ending in virga right now, but will likely soon turn into a rainstorm, and flash floods are a very real - and very deadly - danger in these washes. I turned the Runner around and parked up on high ground - on the highway side - then took a closer look at the mountain. Now, knowing right where it’s at, it was easy to identify it as Cabezon Peak. It doesn’t look like much, but the surrounding plain is at 6200 ft elevation, according to the GPS, and the map lists Cabezon at 7779 ft high. That’s a 1500 ft pinnacle sticking up there and looks to me like a good third of it - about 500 ft - is pretty much straight up………….

The NW (left) side looks sorta possible and I had hopes of a climbing route there, but I dunno. Handheld with high telephoto and cropped right down, it’s not too clear…………..

………but it looks to me like there’s vertical portions all the way ’round, and it looks like it’s all loose, crumbly rock. I don’t even think climbing ropes and a partner would help, and I have neither. This is all s’posed to be in fun, but I think this 500 feet of rock wall would be suicidal. One day, if I’m in the area with time to spare and an excess of energy, I may take a closer look, but for now, I’m going to cancel any thoughts of attempting a climb here. Too bad, it do look neat.

On the way back to the highway, there’s a place where the Rio Puerco wash is bridged, and a look down showed that water was just beginning to flow. This wasn’t a big storm - so far - but it’s best to be very careful around dry washes during storms.

Lar.

Santa Fe, NM

www.gogittum.com

www.gogittum.com/blog

Posted: July 2nd, 2008 under 08 New Mexico, 08-7-2 Mystery Mountain Identified.
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