Marilyn Markel guided us on the second leg of our June 2, 2019, field trip to the archaeological sites atop (way atop) a steep bluff at Ponderosa Ranch in the upper Mimbres Valley. This is yet another site that is monitored by a volunteer Site Steward (who also happens to be a GCAS member) under the New Mexico SiteWatch Program. [Photos by GCAS guest photographer Greg Conlin. Thanks, Greg!]
The Ponderosa Ranch Ruin comprises many pithouses, small pueblo rooms, and at least one kiva/communal structure area. As is sadly typical for Mimbres Valley archaeological sites, all structures at Ponderosa have been heavily looted and large portions of the sites were vigorously bulldozed in past decades. Nevertheless our group was able to ascertain the outlines of certain structures and the general layout of the structures along the top of the bluff. The views were spectacular but we marveled at how difficult day to day living must have been a millennium ago, with the continual effort of tending crops and carrying water and building materials up the steep bluff from the floodplain below.