Abducted in the Valle

July 7th, 2007


Dozing off, I awake with my head banging against the tinted passenger-side window, to the rhythmic vibrations of the truck riding over gravel waves. Most days, this black, bed-covered Nissan just sits outside the NPS (News & Photo Services) office. “How can anyone sleep on this road?” NPS Manager Dave Counts asks from the driver’s seat, looking over through dark aviators. “Aw, it ain’t too bad,” I reply, straightening up in my seat.

From Philmont, the trip into the Valle Vidal is a solid hour-and-a-half, give or take, on a public road that cuts through Ted Turner’s 800,000-acre Vermejo Ranch.

Still groggy, I look out the window and spot a herd of horses down in the meadow to our right. “Look, horses!” I exclaim, turning to face a smug expression on Dave’s face, halfway covered by his bug-eyes. “Those aren’t horses,” he cautiously replies; thin lips savoring the moment. “Those are elk.”

Today is an odd day. Not just because horses are turning into elk right before my eyes, but also because it is the 60th anniversary of the Roswell, NM UFO crash. Sure, I wanted to go to the annual festival, but all I could get out of those more fortunate to have vehicles was, “I ain’t goin’ to no dang hippy-fest.”

So I’m on my way to Ring Place, where stargazing is the main program. And who knows, maybe I’ll see something a bit out of the ordinary, something to fuel my imagination, flying high above in the starry night-sky.

Arriving at the camp just before sunset, Dave parks the truck in the staff parking lot. We gather our stuff and make our way to the cabin, crossing a field and passing a large white yurt. Anticipation sets in; they don’t know we’re coming.

At the cabin, two staff members are busy supplying a crew with meals from its commissary. “You two staying the night?” one asks with a hint of enthusiasm. Not many visitors come up here. “Yes,” I reply, and they invite us in.

I enter a dimly lit room, and put my stuff against the far wall, next to a fireplace in the corner. This is the “Camper Lounge.” From the ceiling pokes a propane light socket--no electricity. In the center of the room squats a large wooden table, surrounded by wooden benches, at which two advisors sit, sipping coffee and picking at doughnuts from a plate on the table.

Waiting till they leave, I try a doughnut and am told they are homemade. “That’s why our advisor’s coffee is [one of] the best, because every night we either bake something or have left over meals, which include chicken-fried elk,” P.C. Jeff Erber said. “[Once] we Captain-Crunch-fried chicken. Another time we fed the advisors supreme pizza. It was comparable to Outback Pizza,” he said. “Nobody comes to Ring Place and doesn’t eat. We do things differently up here.”

A welcoming thought.

At 9:45, an hour later, we leave the room to stare at a clear, black sky, glittered with the cosmos. Pointing out constellations with a green high-powered laser, P.C. Clayton Brostowin explained the Greek myths behind them. It was like listening to gossip or hearing a soap opera over the radio. That night, I learned more about Greek mythology, than about scientific facts.

I did, however, look through a telescope. There are three at Ring Place, all of which are at least 10 years old. Two still work.

Looking through the larger of the two, I stare at five blurry dots: Jupiter and its four moons.

No UFO’s tonight.

But there are other interesting objects that can be seen out here, not including the nightly display of meteorites and satellites. “We saw the International Space Station just as the space shuttle was departing,” Jeff said. “They were following each other real close. They are obviously much bigger than any satellite up there.” The staff has already seen the ISS twice.

It was a chill evening, and so I wrapped myself up in a blanket to ward off the steady breeze that was trying to steal away my warmth. I couldn’t go inside; there was so much to see in the sky not covered with clouds, light pollution or city smog.


The Next Day:


I am the last one to crawl out of my sleeping bag and leave the yurt for breakfast. And with the sun up, I take a good look around.

Many of the structures on “Ring Ranch” were built in the 1890’s, when Timothy Ring bought the land from the Maxwell Land Grant Coop., before he died in 1906 of tuberculosis. His original cabin, which still stands today but is boarded up, contains six bedrooms. Surrounding it are other remnants of an age gone-by, including the remains of an old chicken coop and a dried-up well.

However, the staff cabin to its left and the corral behind it, which Mr. Ring didn’t build, are still used today.

The “staff cabin,” built by W.J. Gourley on 1945, is perhaps the newest standing structure in the Valle. Because everything is a historical artifact (including the buildings), being untouched for over 50 years, nothing more can be built on the land, for fear of destroying it. And so every summer, Philmont rents Gourley’s cabin from the Carson National Forest.

So while the staff at the other Valle camps (Seally Canyon, Whitman Vaga) live in their yurts (or shanty) and sleep in tents, the staff at Ring Place live in Gourley’s cabin and sleep in their yurt. But it isn’t all luxury. Having the most storage space also makes them the Valle’s commissary, with every crew that comes through the Valle stopping here to restock.

At the same time, the Valle Vidal Grazing Association uses the coral in the beginning of the summer to hold 200,000 head of cattle, though not all at once. After the cattle are dispersed into the 110,000-acre Valle, where they graze for six months out of the year, all that’s left in the coral are four horses and a donkey. Theses belong to cowboy Heath Smith, the one man who cares for the cattle, all by himself.

“You got a job to do and your cow-punch is just the pride to get it done,” Smith told me.

Together, Smith and the Philmont staff live on “Ring Ranch” until August, when Philmont ends its summer program and Smith moves to another location in the Valle.

Some other, lesser artifacts; shards of glass, pottery and nails, powder the trail to the 30K. Dully glinting in the sun, they catch my eyes as I wander to my destination a stone’s-throw away from the cabin. Turning off the main trail, I follow a short pathway lined with twisted logs bleached by sunlight, inhaling a deep breath of sun-warmed breeze, soaked through with sweet-smelling ponderosa-pine. It is a kingly entrance to the best toilet in the backcountry.

Exactly why this outhouse cost 30 thousand dollars to make, I do not know. Nor does it matter. For the six staff members at Ring Place, though, it is serious bragging rights. Built upon on a concrete foundation, and with ventilation flowing air through the underground storage pit, it does not smell like a red-roof. In fact, once inside, it does not smell at all.

I made sure to sign the guestbook.

“The reason why there’s a 30K here is because it’s an archeological site, so they didn’t want to build a bunch of cat-holes,” C.D. Christian said. “So Philmont had to pay to build the 30K. There’s broken glass, old broken nails, there’s pieces of broken china, as well; the whole place is an archeological site.”

Besides artifacts, luxury and a magnificent landscape, however, another thing the Ring Place staff has a lot of is “down-time,” which also applies to the other two Valle camps. But they always find ways to keep themselves busy.

Being the only camps in the Valle, their friendships are, perhaps, a little stronger than Philmont backcountry camps. So other than frequently visiting each other, the Valle staffers also share.

“I read a lot. I have enough books to keep me busy (20+),” Ring Place P. C. Thomas Geyser said. “We sort of have a book-exchange program out here in the Valle. Well, us and Seally Canyon; we exchange books a lot.”

And this friendship has other benefits too.

“I don’t really know much about it now, but we are planning on having an all-Valle Phil-fiesta, instead of just doing individual ones,” Christian said.

But when it comes to “shooting-the-breeze” in the Valle, there is nothing like good ‘ol “porch-talk.”

“I’d eat a coyote but not a dog, because it’s domesticated,” Geyser said.

“I bet a coyote would taste real bad,” Clayton disagreed.

The day was ending and I had enjoyed my stay, but not quite found what I was looking for.

It took longer than expected for Dave and I to head-out, and we ended up leaving about the same time we had arrived the day before. Originally, we were hoping to make to make it back in time for dinner, but then, as time dragged, decided to stay. Now, it was a race against the sun; it was setting fast, and by the time we reached the truck we had lost all haste: we still had an-hour-and-a-half’s drive back to base-camp.

In a matter of minutes, we had passed Whitman Vega, about a mile down the road and to our left.

Then, with the sun still peaking over the horizon, we pass some more “horses” on our left in that same meadow which sat on our right as we were coming in. They are all cows, or young’ns still with the herd.

“I wish I could see a bull,” I say to Dave. I’ve seen plain herds of elk before.

Reaching down into my day-bag, sitting at my feet, I pull out some papers my mom printed out off the internet about the Roswell, NM UFO crash, 60 years ago.

Clearing my throat, I begin to read aloud to Dave, helplessly driving along; a prisoner in his own vehicle. With over 20 pages of conspiracy theories to read in little more than an hour’s drive, I’m not sure I can make it, but I’m going to try.

Suddenly, the truck skids to a halt. “Was my reading really that bad?” I think.

Dave backs it up and rolls down his window. “There’s your bull,” he says, craning his neck back over his left shoulder. We spot it down in the meadow, with a full-rack; it must be three-feet high. And it isn’t alone either. There are others, a small group of them, but having lesser racks.

Proud and majestic, the bull raises its tall neck high, staring in our direction. We are all staring at each other, paused, like deer in headlights.

They are a sight worthy of praise, and I wonder what they think of us.

After several minutes, Dave slowly starts to pull away. Just then we spot two more; as majestic and stately as the first one.

Again, the truck stops and we continue to gaze; something deep down inside us being touched by something else too beautiful for words: a rich fulfillment only raw emotions can describe.

Time slows down. Days go by, until we finally break our gaze and drive on.

Reshuffling the UFO papers in my hands, I find my place, clear my throat and once more break the silence

But it wasn’t the same. We had just had been touched by something supernatural, something spiritual, out in the Valle Vidal.