The recent snow and poor condition of the El Malpais backroad changed our plans at the last moment so we decided to continue on down the road to the El Morro National Monument to see what that was all about. A small national monument, it records an incredible history of human visitation and habitation- ancestral Puebloans, Spanish, Civil War soldiers, wagon trail migrants. The reason is a prow-like promontory of sandstone with a reliable waterhole perched in a cove in the cliffs base. Not only did this waterhole fuel a 100+ room ancient pueblo on the cliff above, but also Spanish and American explorers and travelers who have passed through since. Many of them must have felt a connection with the place (or at least a sated thirst!) and felt compelled to leave evidence of their passing.
The oldest dated signature is 1605, many petroglyphs are considerably
older. Some of the Spanish inscriptions are particularly ornate, written
in an old script and in some cases including lengthy descriptions of their importance, bravery, and generosity. The visitor center provides a pamphlet that does a great job pointing out many of the more notable and interesting carvings. We ate lunch on a rock on the clifftop near the ancestral Puebloan ruins, no doubt where some of them had eaten their lunches before us.
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