History - Santa Fe Trails - El Camino Real

[Tom Harper]

The discussion thread for this topic is:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=692383


A number of Archaeologists have directed me to the aerial photos at the University of New Mexico and the BLM. Any trails visible on old photos would predate ATVs and WW2 jeeps. It is the most valuable resource I could have.

But, it was one of those things I never got around to. Finally, last year, I contacted the local BLM office and they have a set. The photos are from 1936, have impressive resolution and appear to be from 10,000 feet or so altitude. The nice lady at the BLM is very protective of the pictures. She held my camera and Land Rover hostage long enough for me to take one of the photos home to scan.

At first I did not see much in the image. It is from very high altitude. The topography is confusing. Trails are not distinct from drainages. There is little obvious enough to jump out at you.

After six months of 'off and on' examination I got an idea. The pictures are only 70 years old. The trees are at least that old. So, unique tree patterns should match images from Google Earth. I blew up the image until it almost pixelates and moved around until I found what looked like a circle of trees. Then went to Google Earth and searched the same area - Shazam, there were the trees. That gave me an exact reference point on the photo. I pulled in a photoshop blue line and scrolled down it until I came to a feature. Right there was a perfectly straight trail that I had never noticed. I did the same thing on the Google image and there it was - a familiar feature that I have always assumed is a county drainage ditch. But, it was there in 1936! Why would the county dig a drainage ditch on top of a mesa in 1936. Could have been the CCCs. It also could have been an original trail. It's a starting point.

So, that's what this thread iis about. We are making a lot of discoveries based on the photo. I'll detail the method and results here. The original photo is below. Will attach higher resolution scans of sections as we progress.

[Tom Harper]

The aerial below was taken with an Olympus C-50 using one of my disposable paper airplanes with a Norvel .25 glo engine.

The first photo is an enlargement of the 1936 BLM. The red arrow on the right shows the circle of trees and the one on the left points to the straight line feature.

The second photo is an RC aerial I took last year. The black rectangle is my car. It's front bumper (rt) is against the feature that appears on the 1936 photo. There is a similar ditch visible in the lower left of the photo and what I believe to be a trail in the upper left quarter. I haven't found either one in the 1936 photo.

I have gone over this ditch visually and with a metal detector. No artifacts or indication of what it is.

If you look closely at the circle of trees you can see a trail that runs through it. This trail is visible on the ground. It may be a better candidate than the drainage ditch.

[Tom Harper]

This is a detail of the circle of trees and the surrounding area. It does not include the the line shown above. I'll expand on that later.

Below is an oblique shot (looking east) of the area taken from my model. The circle of trees is on the lower left just out of the frame. I have rotated the 1936 BW so that it is approximately the same orientation and labeled the landmarks and tree groupings.

The ridge of the hill runs from A ->C. The major ascent seems to have been at A with some other traffic at B. I think the trail at this point was simply up the arroyo. They were looking for places to get out of the arroyo and over the hill. The path through the circle of trees leaves the arroyo where there is no embankment. The circle of trees may occur because it was used as a corral. Unlike in the movies, the animals were inside the circle and the people were on the outside.

The trail through the circle would go over the hill at the bottom of the oblique photo. Possibly at C.

There is a trail at T3 that goes between clumps of trees. There is a pile of rocks at the edge of the hill that may have been a cairn. I think it is too far east to be the one that goes through the circle.

[Tom Harper]

The photos are enlargements of just the trail/drainage line shown in post #2.
The trail that I think is authentic is the narrow one that comes in vertically on the left of the color photo. With a lot of imagination I think I can find it in the 1936 photo (maybe too much imagination).

This has to be the same line in both pictures. But there are some differences. I need to get another orthogonal, identify some trees and see if I can get them to the same scale.