The Heart of the Story

September conditions in the Cruces Basin in 2015 were a very different than the freak snow in Diablo Canyon in 1950.To tell the story of herding the sheep back to the Abeyta Ranch in Mogote, Colorado. I'm including eight 2016 photographs of the return to the ranch from the high mountains where Victor Hernandez had tended the sheep from June to mid-September.

Victor 'Cuba' Hernandez's summer campo in the pine forest.

The green grass of summer at 10,000 feet.

Amos Abeyta is a mythic figure in Abeyta family lore, a tower of strength through the depression, World War Two and the post war years. No story of this stalwart man is more telling than the one Alfonzo weaves about the freak snowstorm of 1950. At twelve years old Alfonzo and his father Amos were tending the herd in Diablo Canyon high above Chama. The whistle of the Cumbres and Toltec Railroad could be heard in the distance.

Down the mountain to the Rio de Los Pinos. See Victor just above the sheep. 

Andrew Abeyta and Victor before crossing the river.

Crossing El Rio de Los Pinos.

Alfonzo’s eyes grew moist as he told of the freak snow that dumped three feet of snow on the flock and of the late summer snow that threatened to kill the sheep and Alfonzo and his father along with them.

Homeward Bound.

Over the next hill to Mogote.

As the snow accumulated only two things mattered. How would they get the sheep down the mountain and back to the safety of the Conejos River Valley? And how would they survive the night when temperatures would dip into the teens? It was a moment of truth and that truth was that the sheep would suffocate in the snow and Amos and Alfonzo wouldn’t the last the night without shelter. 

Alfonzo recalls with crystalline clarity that his dad felled a mid-size pine and drug it like a giant broom behind one of their horses to clear a route for the sheep to pass. He dragged the tree all the way the way to the flats, a distance of four miles. Having cleared a path, Amos summoned his backcountry skills to prepare a shelter. He cut down saplings and built an arbor to keep out the snow. He cleared the snow from the from the frozen ground beneath the shelter and spread small branches and pine needles to insulate them from the frigid turf. 

As if it was routine the next morning they herded the sheep back to the Abeyta Ranch in Mogote. It's the Abeyta story that captures the essence and strength of their mythic connection to Mother Earth.