Life in this place two decades ago can best be described by the owner of the old ranch, Mrs. Evelyn C. Frey, who has made Frijoles Canyon her home for twenty odd years. She can tell some very interesting stories about the early days. She knows the country and the trails, the flowers and the birds; and she still calls folks, who live thirty miles away, her neighbors. She recalls many lonely hours spent with her baby in the stillness of the Canyon. She remembers how the sun would go down over the south cliff at twelve noon and then how the day would change toward cold evenings and bitter winter nights. Ofttimes a howling wind would arise, then followed a calm, and in the morning a foot of deep snow. And there was no way out of the valley except over the old north trail. She tells how deer pranced around in full view, unafraid. Wild turkeys rested upon the wall behind the old ranch place and could be seen from her kitchen window. But she was never afraid and said she knew how to use a six-shooter if she had to. Mrs. Frey had told me many times, how, after a rough and tiresome drive from Santa Fe over fire trails, all supplies were packed on horses and mules and brought down to the floor of the Canyon. A heavy pack mule, once upon a time, loaded with lumber, just didn’t make one of the sharp turns in the trail. It dropped one hundred fifty feet and went to mule heaven, bumping from first one level to another, lumber and all. The carcass was left for the scavengers of the air to feast upon. Mrs. Frey has described how she often bundled her tiny baby up in blankets to protect it from the cold on bitter winter nights, and, bearing the child in her arms she herself had swung into the saddle at the top of the old trail. The narrow path was covered with snow all the way down, and although she was afraid, the faithful horse had always carried them safely to their home. The time came when pack horses were replaced by a cable-way strung from the north cliff to the floor of the Canyon. It was a thousand feet long and the tram-car was operated by a gasoline engine. This was the way supplies were brought in for the operation of the dude ranch—even the winter’s supply of wood. It was not until 1933 that the old trail was abandoned. At this time an automobile road was blasted from the side of the steep cliff in the lower end of Frijoles Canyon.