Mariano Mesa

Mariano Mesa, north slope

March and April both came in like lions and left no better than hyenas. The snow and wind, combined with a chaotic schedule, interfered with scout rides searching looking for a passage over the northern end of Mariano Mesa.

May stumbled in with temperatures rising into the mid to upper 80s where snow had been blowing two weeks prior. The horses began to shed hair and slick out. Large herds of mother elk and their calves moved through the country in search of the new coming grass. Rides aboard Stryker packing Trooper or Lancer had found us repeatedly wired out as we probed the northern base of the mesa, but we kept pushing further west each time looking for a way up and over the mesa.


Why pack a horse for day rides?

It serves a number of purposes. First, it allows me to exercise 2 horses at the same time. Secondly, it is good for the pack horse to learn to follow correctly and carry a static load. The packing and unpacking take some horses longer to get used to. If you don't believe me, you are more than welcome to come along and try to get panniers up on Trooper. I'll visit you in intensive care. Third, I need all the practice I can get balancing loads, tying knots and all the other small details that are a definite skill set. I have wonderful friends that live just a couple of hours away by horseback that raise Rocky Mountain Horses. You can go to their link that is on the first page of this blog. They are both very experienced packers in the high country, and I mean the really high country of the Cascades in Washington. They are always so helpful to me and manage not to laugh when I rattle through their outfit because they know it takes practice. Fourth, I pack a horse for the same reason that I have roll out bags in all of the ranch and personal vehicles with food, water, clothing and gear. Things happen out here in the Big Open, and being unprepared is likely to hurry your meeting with the Almighty. Cell phones don't work and there are not many folks around in a part of the west still classified as a Frontier County. So, I pack along an extra horse and enough stuff to feed us all for a day or two as well as provide shelter if we get caught out "many miles from home."

Back to the scout:

The country is tough enough without all of the fences put up by the damn sod busters and sheep herders of the 1930s. Worst country, apart from Texas, I have seen for no gates or locks on gates if you can find one.


Road trips out of state, friends visiting and winter damage repairs here at the ranch have required my attention and interferred with getting the horses as fit as they need to be, though the rides have been getting progressively longer and harder in hours and miles under saddle.


On a late May afternoon, Stryker, Lancer and I again found ourselves moving along a fence line at the bottom of the northern edge of Mariano Mesa only to find that it went straight up the side of the slope to terminate at a sandstone outcrop. Another dead end. Tying Stryker to a stunted pinyon tree I sat down on the shale covered slope and carefully glassed the mesa’s northern edge. It was far too steep to climb and was cleft by boulder cluttered arroyos.



Mariano Mesa across Lopez Draw



I searched for a possible elk or cattle trail. Half a mile across the jumbled, cedar covered base of the slope, I noted a small finger that extended down to a long, dry meadow. If there was any hope for a trail to the top, it would have to be along the spine of that finger.


A two-track leading up the mesa crosses a neighbor’s place less than a mile to the east but it might as well have been in New York because there are no gates along the miles of western perimeter fence I had ridden along all afternoon.


Untying Stryker and making sure Lancer’s lead was wrapped around the saddle horn, I led the lads off down the slope wending through the storm battered cedars and pinyon pine. We came to the lip of a very steep arroyo and as we started down the winter-softened slope gave way and I tumbled several yards down into the soft, sandy bottom rolling quickly to avoid having a horse or two land on top of me. Not to worry. They did just fine with four-legged drive and as they slid to a stop in a choking cloud of dust, both looked at me with bemused contempt for my clumsiness. I was covered with the flour-fine silty soil and it filled my holster leaving the Ruger Blackhawk a mess. I drew the weapon and blew it out until I thought I would pass out from hyper-ventilation. It is one of the reasons why I have open bottoms on my holsters. I checked the action, reholstered the blue steel and we scrambled up the other side soon coming to the long meadow that followed northwest towards Lopez Draw.

Bull dozer trail up the north slope of Mariano

Another quarter mile and through the trees I could see the clawed scar of an abandoned bulldozer trail that had probably been cut sometime at least 50 years ago. Covered with volcanic debris and angling upwards at an angle that precluded riding the horses, I stared upwards and my heart wavered at the thought of the necessary climb to reach the top. It looked like a heart attack in the making, but, what the hell? I knew the horses would do fine on the grass and there was a working well about three miles back in the direction of the ranch which was exactly where they would head if I went down. Somebody would eventually find them and the buzzards would help locate me.

Highway Well on Syrup Tank Road

We started up. Holy cow. I fell several times as melon sized boulders slipped out from underneath me and went crashing down the slope. The horses worked to the side of me and each time I slipped they would carefully stop to avoid stepping on me and stand leaning at a 45 degree angle upslope. Shameful opportunists that they are, the situation did not keep them from grabbing bites of the tall grasses growing between the rocks while I tried to stand up and keep moving upwards. All of us were winded when we broke over the crest twenty minutes later. I could hear the rush of blood coursing through my body as my lungs burned and heaved and could feel my heart slamming aganst my ribs. I love this stuff.

Looking north from top of Mariano Mesa

Looking north, the country goes on seemingly forever broken by mesas and long volcanic ridges separating valleys that wind around to meet each other in an endless pattern of desert high plains grasses, red rim rock, blackened volcanic cones and purpled mountains whose flanks and peaks were smudged and softened by the distance. Several miles to the northeast I could see Sonoreno Mesa that shelters the ranch from the occasional severe winter northers that bring freezing winds and driving snow. We were a long way from home.

After checking equipment and stepping back into the saddle, we worked our way across the mesa glad for level ground and soft footing. Cole’s Well windmill standing like a lonely sentinel could be seen far to the southwest. From there, a due south heading across the broken spine of the mesa would lead to Baca Spring.

Cole's Well & homesteader cabin ruin

West of Cole's Well, a lonely canyon cuts deeply into the western face of the Mariano Escarpment. The canyon is called Nuances Canyon. Local folklore has it that early in the 1900s a Mexican fellow by the name of Nuances and his wife lived in the canyon. The faint remains of their cabin and corrals are still visible. He would pack water barrels on a burro or two and draw water from Cole's Well or the spring that was there before the well was put in. How he ever got burros up the canyon and onto the mesa is a mystery to me. I have attempted to do it by horseback and it is not to be done - not if you value the welfare of your horse.

Mariano Escarpment & Chimney Butte

Allegedly, Nuances killed his wife and fled the country. I spoke with a member of one of the original settler families from the 1870s and he disputes the story. He owns the canyon now so he ought to know but it does make for a great tale. "When truth and legend become one, print the legend."

Nuances Canyon

Lengthening shadows silently warned we had travelled far enough for this day. A slight pressure with my left leg and Stryker swung his head towards the northeast and stepped out with renewed enthusiasm. Half a mile later and the twin rails of a two track raised dust

from the horse’s hooves. We passed around the shoulder of a low hill and came upon another chained off well on the western edge of a dry lake bed. The horses moved purposely towards the drinker and looked with disappointment at the dry, dusty bottom.


A large herd of elk suddenly went banging away through the cedars and the horses took the opportunity to act silly. During the ruckus, my micro-cassette went flying ending its days in silt covered pieces. It is always something with those boys.


After things settled down a bit we continued north until we struck my neighbor’s two-track leading down the northern edge of Mariano. We leveled out on the valley floor and tracked northeast only to find ourselves wired out by an east-west fence that proved to have no gate at either end or anywhere along its length.


Sheepherders settled much of this country and I swear they did not even know how to build a gate. Who the hell does not put gates in fences? It is a maxim of handling livestock that critters escape whenever they can. How does anyone expect to get them back onto their home range again without gates?

Homeward bound, we passed through my neighbor’s headquarters area. No one answered my calls and we continued on. I have wonderful neighbors that kindly allow me the privilege of crossing their private land horseback, but it always makes me uncomfortable to have to pass through their headquarters. I am jealous of my privacy and I hate to trespass on the privacy of others.

I unwired an old gate along the highway and nearly an hour later, a saddle stiff rider and leg-weary horses came down the ranch drive just as the sun was setting behind darkening clouds.

Far Rider
See to your weapons and stand to your horses