Early westering explorers were awed by it. Archeologists have studied it for a century. Indigenous people have long known the site, of course, and continue to revere it. Today, as a Texas state park, tens of thousands tour it each year.
Hueco Tanks, east of El Paso, will always inspire wonder. Its red volcanic mountains create a desert oasis. And the prehistoric imagery painted on its cliffs and cave walls is deeply evocative.
Yet as well-loved as Hueco Tanks is, we’re only beginning to take its true measure. Archeologists are making discoveries here that defy expectation.
Amanda Castañeda and Charles Koenig, her fellow archeologist and husband, are conducting a new survey of Hueco Tanks pictographs.
“Sometimes you enter a fissure or a crack and that fissure and crack just continues,” Castañeda said, “and you have to just continue in that area. You really to some degree have to let the mountain guide you.”
Koenig and Castañeda are both veteran rock-art researchers, but the Hueco Tanks survey is still a challenging assignment.
Hueco Tanks is a stony labyrinth of narrow crevices and steep rock faces – it’s a legendary rock-climbing destination for a reason. Because of that complexity, it hasn’t been thoroughly surveyed before.
Working with the archeological firm Versar, Castañeda and Koenig began the project in 2024 – after El Paso Representative Mary Gonzalez secured state funding. They began at North Mountain, one of Hueco Tanks’ four main outcrops.
They divided the mountain into 30-by-30-meter grids – then groped and climbed. Using flashlights in shadowy spaces, they sought even the faintest signs of pigment. Then, they used a digital tool called DStretch to draw out imagery invisible to the naked eye.
Hueco Tanks is known for its colorful “Jornada-style” pictographs – striking faces or “masks,” dancers with headdresses, geometrics designs still used by Native peoples in the Southwest.
The archeologists expected to find between 300 and 400 previously undocumented rock-art panels across the entire park. But that expectation was swiftly upended – as they identified a host of Jornada-style images.
“I think we were probably up to 40 panels within two weeks,” Castañeda said. “I mean, it very quickly snowballed, and we very quickly realized that there were way more than I think anyone had guessed.”
The pair ultimately recorded 161 new panels at North Mountain. A panel is as any imagery on a rock surface; that might include a single image or many. In 2025, they moved on to West Mountain – where they found 154 previously unrecorded panels.
The Jornada people were desert farmers. With its caves, springs and natural water catchments, Hueco Tanks was likely a water shrine, a portal to the powers that brought rain. But the archeologists also found pictographs created by more ancient foraging cultures. This place was clearly sacred for millennia.
The newly discovered imagery is painted in red, black, yellow and white; much of it is near known rock art, but, without DStretch, appears dim or nondescript.
The couple found stylized handprints applied by children. Many images were hidden in spaces large enough for only one person; some were a single line or smudge. These likely reflect individual devotional acts, Koenig said.
“Whether that's you're walking on a ceremonial procession going up the mountain or you're walking into this chamber and the smudge or the single red line – that is a prayer, that is an offering,” he said. “It's still part of that ceremonial ritual landscape, which is an interesting story in itself.”
Castañeda and Koenig will now move on to the two remaining mountains – East Mountain and East Spur. They anticipate documenting hundreds of additional new images.
And their findings will empower the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department to safeguard this place. It’s a West Texas resource we’re only beginning to understand.
This story was made possible by generous donations from supporters like you. Please consider showing your support with a contribution today.
