Last weekend, I invited my neighbor friend, Valerie to join me for some letterboxing in the Village of Cerillos, about 30 minutes north of us, and only 20 minutes south of Santa Fe. There were two letterboxes placed there within the Cerillos Hills Historic Park. You can also read about our trip through Val's blog Fantastyk Voyage
The Village of Cerrillos was established in 1879 as a tent camp between the lead and silver of the Cerrillos Hills to the north and the coal of Madrid and the gold of Placer and Ortiz Mountains to the south.
The population of Cerillos is approx. 300 people. There are probably more animals living in Cerillos than humans, though. Cerillos is well known for the movie that was filmed there called Young Guns. Many movies are filmed in New Mexico and there is even a Movie Studio located in southeast Albuquerque. The downtown streets (only two) of Cerillos look like a movie set.
Cerillos Hills Historic Park with its tricultural heritage, have held an unusually important place in the history of the American Southwest. The Cerrillos Hills turquoise and lead deposits played a central role in the commerce and economy of the prehistoric Indians of the Rio Grande Valley, and these mineral deposits probably influenced the early Spanish explorations and settlement of New Mexico.
The low hills contain deposits of copper, silver, lead, zinc, iron, gold, and turquoise. Beginning with the prehistoric mining of turquoise, these mineral deposits have been important to Native American, Spanish, Mexican, and American miners.
We hunted for the first letterbox, but after searching for 20 minutes and backtracking to make sure we had followed the clues, we came to the sad conclusion that it had gone missing. There was a very large packrat nest over on the other side of the ridge that we figured might have had something to do with the letterbox' demise. 
We went in search of the other letterbox and discovered many more mine shafts to explore.A few of the mines survived into the 20th century. The American Turquoise Company, an agency of Tiffany, New York, was active around the turn of the century, especially at Turquoise Hill on the north side of the Cerrillos.
However, Puebloan turquoise mining in the Cerrillos Hills continued into the twentieth century, with historical records showing inhabitants of Santo Domingo, Cochiti, San Felipe, and San Ildefonso all making use of the mines.
Along the way, we enjoyed some of th trees changing colors. Jackson was nice enough to take a photo of Val and I. 
One of the mines had a cool bridge over it and was very deep. Jackson skipped a couple stones down the shaft and we were surprised with how long it took for the stone to hit bottom.
We quickly located the second letterbox and sat down on the bench to log-in while enjoying the expansive views. Behind us we could see Santa Fe Baldy, to the west we could see the Jemez Mountains, and to the south (click on the photo for a larger view) we enjoyed seeing the Sandia Mountains (in the center), and the Ortiz Mountains (on the left).
Val and I were already scheming to come back to visit Cerillos Hills Historic Park because it is open to horseback riding, and the trails would be fun to take our ponies out for the day. Everytime I saw a pile of manure on the trail I got so excited just imaging me and my painted pony riding those same trails. Val thought I was silly, but she was excited, too. But not about the poo. Located at all the trail heads were hitching posts and of course we just had to have some fun playing on them.
My rump's a bit too broad for the 2" wide post. I almost did a few flipping gymnastics moves while trying to get comfy. 
We had a great day hiking and letterboxing, and best of all was that Val decided to become an official letterboxer! You can read about her jump into letterboxing, along with her first stamp carving experience in creating her own Personal Stamp, on her blog Fantastyk Voyage. Woot! Woot! 
On the way out of Cerillos Hills we passed some riding corrals with horses to rent. It was called Broken Saddle.
I had a little fun with my photo imaging program when I got home.
This really old and weathered tack caught my eye.
Broken Saddle was a pretty good name for the place..
Up Next: Madness in Madrid, NM
For more information about Letterboxing, click on the following links:
Letterboxing.org
Atlas Quest
Here you can also see my letterboxing profile if you click on 'Find Letterboxers' under the drop down menu: 'People': Look for 'Twinville Trekkers5'
No comments:
Post a Comment