SANTA FE — Mysterious stick structures that have popped up recently in the Santa Fe National Forest are stumping officials.
The National Forest announced Friday that numerous “human-built conical stick structures” have been erected near the Ski Santa Fe area. Some are two stories tall — about 20 feet — and 20 feet or more in diameter, according to spokeswoman Julie Anne Overton.
The pyramids were discovered when employees from the Española Ranger District went into the woods with a volunteer who showed them seven or eight of the stick tepees off Tesuque Peak Road at Aspen Vista. At least 10 more are below the Aspen Vista picnic area, and some have also been seen on the Windsor Trail and in the Big Tesuque drainage.
Officials are worried that the structures, made of about 1,000 or more individual sticks or logs, pose a fire danger. “The wood is seasoned and dry, and the design is similar to a classic kindling pyramid but on a much larger scale,” Overton wrote in a news release. “And to exacerbate the obvious fire danger, people appear to be using fire rings inside many of the structures.” But Overton said there’s no evidence people are living in them.
