Road trip 2017 - Day 2

 March 28

My intention today was to go to Fort Wingate in Gallup, then head north to Farmington, New M Mexico, for the first contact with the Old Spanish Trail. But as I drove into Gallup last night I saw a sign for the El Morro National Monument that intrigued me.  So I looked it up and immediately decided that I wanted to go there. I looked again at Fort Wingate web sites and realized that almost all of the Fort from the 19^th Century was gone.  The Fort was certainly important to the west since it was built in 1865 but it has undergone many changes over time. Further it had no connection with the Old Spanish Trail so I decided to skip the Fort and head directly to El Morro.

El Morro

When I got started in the morning it was cold – 34 degreesF.  I headed south from Gallup along NM route 602 then southeast through the Zuni Indian Reservation then to El Morro which is in, or adjacent to, the Ramah Navaho Indian Reservation. El Morro is a large rock (sandstone) prominence that has a nice pool of water at its base formed by rainwater runoff.  

This was a treasure for early travelers in the area.  Petroglyphs on the rock prove that the Indians were the first to leave their mark on the rock. A Spanish expedition, headed by Antonio de Espejo, went to the area in 1583 in effort to find two Spanish priests who had gone their before and had not returned. They found that the priests had been killed and on March 11, 1583, Espejo recorded that he stopped at what he called El Estanque de Peño, (The pool at the great rock). El Morro stood sentinel to early attempts by Spain to control the region, including the expeditions of Don Juan de Oñate between 1598 and 1605. The Spanish efforts were ended by a revolt of the Natives in 1680, but Spanish efforts resumed by the Reconquest by Don Diego de Vargas in 1792. Vargas inscribed his name on El Morro in the fall of that year.

Other inscriptions on the rock document army explorers in 1851 and 1853. In 1857 a sight that must have surprised anyone in the area passed by the rock – a camel caravan.  This was an experiment by the army to employ camels in the southwest desert areas. Their passage was documented on El Morro.  Ultimately the Beale Wagon Road was established that passed by El Morro and continued due west all the way to California.  This route was paralleled later by the Union Pacific railroad, and later US Route 66 and Interstate 10.

I left El Morro as it was lightly snowing. The temperature had risen to a toasty 35 degrees so the snow melted as it hit. The elevation there was about 7800 ft., and in some areas the landscape was a semi-transparent white over the green foliage.  I continued northwest crossing the continental divide and then, strangely, recrossing it a few miles later.  That does not agree with the route of the divide on my map which only shows it intersecting with Route 53 once.  I returned to IS40 at Grants and turned back west to Thoreau and NM373 that took me to Farmington where I incepted the Old Spanish Trail.

The Armijo route of the Old Spanish Trail started at Abiquiu which is a few miles northwest from Santa Fe.  Located on US84, it is the site of Georgia O'Keefe's home and studio.  It is in Abiquiu that the southern and northern routes of the Old Spanish Trail diverge.  The northern route was developed due to the difficulties Armijo encountered on his original southern route - especially in crossing the Colorado River. I followed a portion of the northern route last year after leaving Bent's Fort and traveling west.

The Armjo route roughly parallelsUS550 which runs in a northerly direction toward Farmington and Bloomingtion NM. There are few roads ont he map as the trail passes through the Apache Indian Reservation so I just headed north on NM Route 371 directly to Farmington  after leaving El Morro.
After the Armijo Expedition left the area of the Aztec Ruins the trails meanders northwest, then turns southwest, then back southwest before it reached the Colorado River.

After a quick lunch I continued to the Aztec National Monument which is located a few yards south of the San Juan River where the Armijo Expediting traveled in 1829. According to Armijos records of his expedition, he started on November 7, 1829, and arrived at the San Gabriel Mission on January 31, 1830. He left Los Angeles on March 1 and arrived home on April 25. According to the woman I talked to at the Aztec Monument visitor’s center they determined from his description that the expedition traveled along the opposite side of the San Juan River from the Aztec ruins. At the time the Armijo expedition was there the extensive Aztec village had been buried in the shifting sands and was just one big mound so Armijo may not have noticed it.

Note the two men walking on the right

The Aztec ruins were discovered in 1859 and excavated in the 20^th Century and portions were rebuilt and stabilized.  Some of the wooden beams in the building have been dated to 1100AD by tree ring analysis.  It was occupied until about 1200 and then, for some reason, abandoned.  I have visited other abandoned native housing sites in the Southwest and I guess this is the one that is most well preserved, or perhaps restored, but it is not the largest at least what is now visible.  

The San Juan River

There is now a trail from the visitor’s center to a bridge across the river so curious people like me can say they walked on the path of Don Armijo – which I did.









Apparently after the site was discovered it was vandalized by souvenir seekers and some of the original stones were “repurposed” by settlers in the area.  It is now a protected site managed by the National Park Service and has been designated as a World Heritage Site.

After the Armijo Expedition left the area of the Aztec Ruins the trails meanders north then southwesterly before it reached the Colorado River. According to the map the only places where the Armijo route intersects with modern roads is in this area US Route 160 where the route follows the Marcos River which flows into the San Juan River a few miles west of the Aztec Ruins. US160 passes right through the four corners area where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado aand crossest the Old Spanish Tail a few miles south of the Four Corners. I followed Route 160 north from Shiprock, and then as it turns southwest toward Teec Nos Pos and could find no evidence of any memorial or documentation of the presence of the trail.  The Marcos River was dry, so I just proceeded to Kayenta along UIS160 which in that area closely parallels the Spanish trail route.

The landscape in this area continues to be beautiful with numerous rock formation jutting up up from the scrub-covered flatlands in a myriad of wind and rain sculpted shapes. Shiprock, Courthouse Rock, Signature Rock, El Morro, and many others which don't have obvious names. If I had stopped to take a picture of eery interesting rock formation I'd stillbe at El Morro, but hereis a randon sample along NM160.


I stopped for the night in Kayenta