The 1995 Casas Grandes/Cerro
deTrinchera Mexico Aerial Photo Expedition
Background Information
In September of 1995 John Roney, an archaeologist
with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Albuquerque, New Mexico,
and Tom Baker (of Baker Aerial Photography/Archaeology, also in
Albuquerque, New Mexico) teamed up to fly Baker's photo plane
down to Casas Grandes to acquire some aerial photos of archaeological
sites in that area. Ben Benjamin of Albuquerque seved as the photo
pilot and Rudi Benskin of Safford, Arizona also assisted both
in the air and on the ground. The four expedition members funded
the non-profit venture themselves.
Casas Grandes, both the modern town (Nuevo or New Casas Grandes)
and the adjacent ruins of the prehistoric one (also known as Paquime,
pronounced "PAK-ih-may"), are in the Mexican state of
Chihuahua in the northern part of Old Mexico, ninety miles below
the border of New Mexico, USA. During one of his earlier visits
to Casas Grandes John scouted out an airfield near the town from
which an airplane could be operated, but reported that it was
unmanned and without fuel. However, gasoline was available from
any of several automobile gas stations in the town, so they decided
to risk running the aircraft on Mexican auto gas instead of aviation
fuel.
On Sept. 1, 1995, Tom and John therefore loaded six five-gallon
jerry cans and a hand-operated fuel pump into John's truck, as
well as tiedown ropes, wheel chocks, and other aircraft support
items, and John headed south for Mexico, pausing on the U.S. side
of the border at Deming, New Mexico to pick up archaeologist Rudi
Benskin. Rudi had previously assisted John in his surveys of the
Trincheras sites. The two continued on to the Casas Grandes airfield
and met the airplane when it arrived the next day.
It requires two people in a photo plane to shoot vertical (straight-down)
photographs (the most useful kind for mapping purposes), one to
pilot the aircraft while the other operates the cameras. The normal
routine at Baker Aero is for Tom Baker to operate the cameras
while Lee (Elise) Baker, Tom's wife, does the flying and maneuvering
of the aircraft. However, Lee was unable to participate in the
Mexico expedition because the Bakers' toddler, 2-year old Mary,
was too young to be left alone. The photo pilot vacancy was filled
when Ben Benjamin of Albuquerque, a retired engineer, pilot, and
avocational archaeologist, volunteered to fly the airplane during
the photo runs.
Crossing the border and flying in Mexico requires dealing with
two government bureaucracies, not to mention the problems of aerial
navigation in the airspace of a third-world country with inadequate
maps, few airfields, and no search-and-rescue services. Flight
plans were filed with both governments and all the necessary paperwork
for border crossing obtained. On morning of the day after John
Roney departed for Mexico in his truck (Sept. 2, 1995), Tom and
Ben loaded the airplane with camera equipment, film, and survival
gear (since they were going to have to cross a desert to reach
Casas Grandes from Juarez) and flew down the Rio Grande to the
port-of-entry at Juarez.
After clearing Mexican customs at Juarez they flew southwest across
an empty, picturesque desert that was one the bottom of an inland
sea fed by the Rio Grande (see Coffee Break Reading elsewhere
in this Newsletter) and reached Casas Grandes, where John Roney
and Rudi Benskin met them on the ground. Over the next two days
the four members of the expedition took turns scouting the area
from the air (the aircraft only has two seats), locating and photographing
both the trinchera hill sites currently being surveyed by John
and the Casas Grandes (Paquime) ruins and related sites that particularly
interested Tom.
On one flight Tom and Ben undertook a short exploratory reconnaissance
down the Rio Casas Grandes, southward along the eastern face of
the Sierra Madre range, and were amazed to see more large prehistoric
sites than they could effectively record. On the return flight
to the U.S. a new trinchera hill site was seen and recorded north
of the town of Ascension, and later confirmed by John Roney on
the ground.