City: El Paso, TX

Category: Parks & Recreation

Telephone: (915) 857-1135

Address: 6900 Hueco Tanks Rd. No. 1

Description: This 860.3-acre park is named for the large natural rock basins or huecos that have furnished a supply of trapped rainwater to dwellers and travelers in this arid region for millennia. Of the many unique aspects of Hueco Tanks, the most fascinating are the strange thousand-year-old Native American mythological designs, and human and animal pictographs that are painted and carved on the rocks in the area. The site’s notable pictographs include more than 200 face designs or “masks” that were left by the prehistoric Jornada Mogollon culture. Other groups, like the Apaches, Kiowas, and earlier Indian groups, also camped at Hueco Tanks and left behind pictographs recounting their adventures. The tanks also served as watering places for the Butterfield Overland Mail Route in the 1850s. The possible activities at Hueco Tanks range from a guided tour of the pictographs to hiking, rock climbing, camping, or simply packing a picnic to enjoy the unusual geological surrounds of the park. Entrance fees: Adults (13 and above) $4; children (12 and under), seniors (77 years and older), and veterans with at least 60 percent disability, free. Opening hours are generally 7 or 8 a.m. to 6 or 7 p.m. seasonally.