Book Description

Beatty's Cabin journeys back to an amazing time when the Pecos high country of northern New Mexico was still wild and free. George Beatty, an old-time prospector, built his two-room log cabin on a grassy flat, beside the upper Pecos River, an area Elliott Barker grew to love. Beatty's cabin is the pivotal axis for Barker's thrilling memoir of his experiences and rugged adventures, many happy, a few tragic. He gets his first inspiring glimpse of the remote Pecos high country on the very same adventuresome trip when he first explores Beatty's old cabin and prospect holes. With the babble of the upper Pecos water and the whispers of the mountain breezes among the spruces, he begins chronicling his adventures, starting with his first wilderness pack trip in 1896 at the age of ten and continuing with the awe-inspiring glimpses of mountain meadows and rugged peaks. Elliott relates tales of grizzly bear hunts, capturing outlaws, and a perilous winter rescue of a bunch of snow-trapped horses, among others. The historical development of the Santa Fe National Forest and the Pecos Wilderness area, so dear to Barker's heart, form the foundation for this unprecedented memoir of the beauty and the glory of wild New Mexico.