D  e  s  e  r  t     E  x  p  o  s  u  r  e  September 2005

Fool for the City

Rocks in his head, yes. But only because he's smart enough to enjoy City of Rocks State Park.

Maybe I don't get out enough, but I can find entertainment in the most mundane of circumstances, as I believe many us do in this little slice of heaven called Southern New Mexico. We may never be fortunate enough to have our own Sea World or Six Flags over Mimbres theme parks, but we have learned to compensate with games of washers and random gunplay. As a kid growing up here, it was a big treat to go to town for a Coke and a movie, which was about all the excitement I could stand right up until I first saw cable television. I guess that's why I have some sort of bizarre attraction for City of Rocks State Park.

See, now, for those of you so-fisticated enough to have seen the lights of Paris or Dollywood or the Hatch Chile Festival, maybe there doesn't seem to be much to recommend a state park featuring rocks. Especially when you consider that rocks make up a disproportionately large part of our terrain already. But there is a subtle magic that exudes from the City of Rocks, hidden a few miles off the highway between Hurley and Deming. Just like fine wine or David Allen Coe music, it takes time to appreciate the hidden genius and recognize it for what it is.

For those of you too busy with the fast-paced, zip-zap world of modern distraction designed to meet the attention span of a hummingbird, the City of Rocks is a sort of geological Easter Island or Stonehenge of the natural world. Large vertical domes of flaky granite tower above the eroded gullies at their bases, and it's easy to just wander among the rocks towering far overhead. Some say that the park got its name from the sensation that you are walking on streets winding between skyscrapers of stone, but this sounds like something a poor copywriter made up. Besides, there are no pigeons at City of Rocks. Real cities have pigeons pooping on everything.

According to some very smart people at the visitors center who fairly reeked of authority, the rocks are the result of a layer of volcanic ash deposited long before the birth of Abe Vigoda. The ash was so hot it melted into solid rock. As eons passed, the rock cracked, water seeped in and, through a long and tedious process, wrecked the carpet. Having nothing much better to do, the erosive powers of wind and rain continued whittling away on the rock until we now have an eerie landscape of rounded, towering boulders interlaced with deep crevasses.

There is much to recommend City of Rocks State Park to the day-tripper, casual camper or outdoor drinker. For instance, any children with sufficient medical insurance can be cut loose to scale every rock and boulder in sight while you take in the sights at your own pace. A sweeping desert panorama surrounds you from all angles, with vistas spanning incomprehensible distances. Shade is always available due to the sun-blocking properties of large masses of granite and many hardy desert trees living off the rain that runs off from between the boulders. And the government has done a darn nice job of providing bathrooms, tables and facilities on-site.

My favorite visit to this geological Disneyland was about 10 years ago, when I was heading to Arizona's White Mountains for a few days of annoying the fish. I nosed my creaky Suburban into a campsite at the City of Rocks near dusk, positioning myself for an early start the next morning. After I spread my bedding out in the back of the truck, I sat outside as a tumescent purple thunderstorm boiled over the sunset far to the west. I had the best seat in the house as I leaned back, cold adult beverage in hand, and enjoyed the best reality programming imaginable as the flickering tongues of lightning grooved to the desert floor, and wispy veils of smoky rain were backlit by the golden-red rays of the sun. The wind scurried through the omnipresent stone sentinels all around me, and nighthawks began wheeling through the air, unimpressed by the distant storm. My kinship with the City of Rocks was irreversibly forged at that moment, one of those crystalline shards of time that are with you forever, and that illustr
ate the whole concept behind this "Land of Enchantment" thing we read about on our license plates.

Late last month, the family and I spent a night at City of Rocks on the way back from confirming a great lack of fish around Willow Creek. As always, we found a secluded site for the venerable family pop-up camper, and the kids immediately disappeared into the rocks, not to be seen until the sizzling smell of grill-borne meat drew them out. At night we marveled over the fascinating way the flickering firelight played across the rocks, and the lead-crystal clarity of the night sky.

Being just about half a hillbilly, I've never been overly comfortable in urban confines. But if the City of Rocks ever officially incorporates, I'd be pleased as punch to serve as the mayor, or at least a city councilor. In my own little way, I guess you could say I'd be giving back to the community. Where all the citizens are as dumb as rocks because, well. . . they ARE rocks.

When he's not encamped at City of Rocks, Henry Lightcap makes do
with the concrete canyons of Las Cruces.

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