Sitting behind the Westside Recreation Center\/Galatzen Park, on Wallenberg drive, is a large drainage basin formed by the\u00a0earthen dam between Sunland Park Mall and I-10:<\/p>\n
<\/iframe><br \/>\n<small>View <a style=\"color: #0000ff; text-align: left;\" href=\"https:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps\/ms?msa=0&msid=204600700021198483142.0004c39cc3c86ba5cf921&hl=en&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=31.814386,-106.534488&spn=0.006063,0.009184&source=embed\">Mesa Hills Wash<\/a> in a larger map<\/small><\/p>\n<p>I visited the area two times last year; once in harrowing adventure to get to the “<a title=\"I\u2019m on a Bridge to Nowhere\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/?p=279\">Bridge to Nowhere<\/a>” and the other in a vain attempt to find some <a title=\"Mesa Hills Wash\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/?p=407\">interesting\u00a0graffiti<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I went back to walk around the wash basin and kill some time at lunch. \u00a0The area is quite green despite the lack of rainfall.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8022\/7464480340_09eba41fe2_z.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"119\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Click image for a larger view<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Parallel\u00a0to a walking path that rings the area is an arroyo fed by the termination of a large drainage ditch that\u00a0snakes through the westside. Its all downhill and by the time water reaches this area it can very\u00a0forceful as evidenced in the great flood of 06, washing out part of Mesa Hills.<\/p>\n<p>I didn’t notice it before but there is a mini canyon in the arroyo that looks like it holds water\u00a0year round:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7106\/7464440384_564b35892c_z.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I saw quite a few birds around as well as a fox, who darted into his den on the side wall of the\u00a0canyon.\u00a0It might be a good area to do some bird or animal watching if you had the time.<\/p>\n<p>The walls are very steep with lots of loose rocks so you have to be\u00a0careful\u00a0if you\u00a0approach\u00a0it from the side. \u00a0The pond can be reached by walking down the rocky arroyo from one end or by walking down to the wash basin.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8027\/7464484546_681cd448cd_z.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"427\" height=\"640\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The shopping cart helps give you a sense of the scale. \u00a0The pond had lots of\u00a0tadpoles in it so the foxes may be here to feed on frogs or birds. Its an interesting, self contained ecosystem carved by what little rain we get throughout the year. \u00a0A few more pics can be found below:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/juanoxido\/sets\/72157630336340836\/with\/7464484546\/\" target=\"_blank\">Mesa Hills Arroyo<\/a>\u00a0on Flickr<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sitting behind the Westside Recreation Center\/Galatzen Park, on Wallenberg drive, is a large drainage basin formed by the\u00a0earthen dam between Sunland Park Mall and I-10: View Mesa Hills Wash in a larger map I visited the area two times last year; once in harrowing adventure to get to the “Bridge to Nowhere” and the other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[144,10,143,131],"class_list":["post-928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photography","tag-arroyo","tag-el-paso","tag-mesa-hills","tag-texas"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1MdZY-eY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=928"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":931,"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions\/931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}