A fellow lover of all things Northern New Mexico, Terry Clark, told me about this book, a memoir of life and adventures in the Pecos Wilderness by Elliott S. Barker. Barker grew up in northern New Mexico and visited the Pecos high country first as a ten year old boy in 1896, Beatty’s Cabin is more of an area of the Pecos rather than a particular place. Barker spent the rest of his life in the area. He was a rancher and a Forest Ranger and later a game ranger and in fact led the New Mexico State Game Department for years.

In this book he recounts personal history of his own adventures in the high mountains, hunting, fishing, and camping and tells of other’s adventures hunting grizzly bears, elk, and deer. The period of time covered is from the late 1800’s until the early 1950’s.

Part of my interest in the book is my father was a Forest Ranger at the Pecos Ranger Station of the Santa Fe National Forest back in the 1950s.

Here is a photo of my Dad pointing out a feature to me (with the Smokey Bear) and my brother. as you can see I wasn’t good at following directions. Dad told me that the Forest Service hired a photographer to come out and do a shoot and dad was told to cooperate.

He took a lot of ribbing from the people he knew. He said the photographer called him Mr. Cowboy and gave him explicit directions on where to stand or sit, what to point at and all the details. I would really like to talk about this book. I am sure he knew some of the people talked about in the book. Who knows?

Me, I have no memories of the Pecos Ranger station but I got these and other photos from the shoot the Forest Service made of my dad.

Anyway, I loved the book. Barker is a great writer.