El Moro National Monument Trail

The El Moro Trail is a 2 mile loop that visits the historic Inscription Rock and the Atsinna Pueblo ruins site at El Moro National Monument in northwest New Mexico. El Moro is a sandstone bluff or headlands that rises above the Pinon Pine and Juniper surrounding landscape.

For centuries travelers have stopped at El Moro for the pool of cool water that collects in a pocket on one side of the bluff. There isn’t a spring here, but the pool holds water throughout the year. The visitors here left their marks in the sandstone walls near the pool. Now there more than 2000 historic and pre historic inscriptions.

There are 23 interpretive stops on the Inscription part of the trail and a trail guide that gives some of the history of those who stopped here. Several of the main trees of the area are also identified with signs, making this a botany trail also. I noticed that there are more species of Juniper trees here than are usually seen in one place.

Some of the older American Inscriptions are associated with the U.S, Army scouting party surveying a route from Ft. Smith Arkansas to the Colorado River in 1857. This survey party was also testing to see if camels could be used more effectively in the desert environment of the southwest. Many of the inscriptions are white on white and hard to see. In the early years of the park, some efforts were made to darken the writing with carbon.

One of the oldest Spanish inscriptions is from the first governor of New Mexico, Don Juan de Onate in 1605. The Spanish inscriptions often include “paso por aqui”- passed through here. I notice that the Spanish inscriptions here tend to be in a swirly script, like hand writing. There are also Ancestral Pueblo petroglyphs in several places featuring mountain sheep and handprints and there is one bear paw.

After the 0.5 mile Inscription portion of the trail, the route climbs to the top of the bluff giving good views over the surrounding countryside. It looks there is a small vertical arch forming near the top of the bluff. Arriving near the top there are some wall sections visible from a large unexcavated ruins site. The trail over the bare sandstone was marked by chipping parallel lines, forming a lane, and there are many steps carved into the rock.

On the bluff top, the trail winds around the edge of the sandstone bluff, making towards the Atsinna Pueblo ruins site. This is a very large site with maybe 800 rooms, but only a few are excavated. This site is thought to have been occupied from 1275 to 1400 by the ancestors of the Zuni people who have a reservation in the area.

Among the 18 excavated rooms is a Great Kiva. The dates of occupation here are a little later than many other sites in the Four Corners region. Most of the Mesa Verde sites to the north are thought to have been abandoned by the time that Atsinna was just being constructed.

This trail takes about 1:30 hours depending on how long you linger at the many points of interest. There are many benches for resting and enjoying the views. I walked the trail in late June on a 78 F degree day and carried one liter of water. The bluff top is about 200 feet above the inscription covered base.

Bandera Volcano Trail-El Malpais

The Bandera Volcano Trail is located a few miles to the east of El Moro National Monument along Highway 53 in northwest New Mexico. It is a privately owned attraction with a $10 entrance fee. This area is known as the El Malpais region, an area of lava flows and volcanoes.

The starting point for the Bandera Volcano and the shorter Ice Cave Trail is the Old Time Trading Post. The trading post was built in the 1930s during the period when the Zuni Railroad was operating and the timber industry was booming. The trail is like a wide cinder covered road and there is a trail guide with markers along both trails. The hike to the volcano is about a 1.5 mile round trip and the Ice Cave is another 0.5 mile round trip.

One of the points of interest along the volcano trail is a spatter cone. These are formed when a minor vent of hot air breaks through to the surface to form a blow hole.

The volcano trail winds around the outside of the crater and enters through an opening where the lava tube formed and lava flowed out the side. The Bandera Crater is the largest in the region and erupted about 10,000 years ago. The lava flow is nearly 23 miles long. The crater here is 1400 feet wide at the top and 800 feet deep with the trail lookout point about 330 feet below the rim. It is interesting that the lava and cinders can support forest growth. This area has Ponderosa Pines and a few Douglas Firs mixed in with Pinon Pines and Junipers.

The path to the Ice Cave passes through a similar forested landscape on top of a lumpy lava surface with sink holes and lava tubes. At the Ice Cave there are uneven wooden stairs leading down into deep hole, with the air getting noticeably cooler with each step. Cold air settling into the hole and the thick insulation keeps the bottom frozen year round. In the early years of the trading post this cave was a source of ice to keep the beer cold.

The ice is thought to be 20 feet thick and the green color is due to a cold tolerant algae. The oldest ice at the bottom is thought to be 3400 year old. It took me about 1 hour to walk these two trails

El Calderone Trail in El Malpais

The El Calderone Trail is a 3 mile loop that explores some of the volcanic features of the El Malpais National Monument area in northwest New Mexico. The Trail Head is along Highway 53 south and west of Grants, NM. This trail has an interpretive guide with seven stops.

The first point of interest is Junction Cave right at the trail head. Junction Cave is a lava tube created by lava flows from nearby El Calderone cinder cone and is thought to be 115,000 years old. Junction Cave can be entered if you are properly equipped with hard hat, gloves, and at least three flash lights.

The interpretive guide discusses the types of life that use caves, with most of it being very small species. The cave information indicates that there is at least about 500 feet of tunnels here.

Another feature is the Double Sinks, the trail passing right between two very large holes, each about 80 feet deep. The terrain here is a bumpy lava surface covered with grass with scattered pine and juniper trees. There are both Pinon Pines and Ponderosa Pines.

The lava tubes and trenches have an effect on the environment in that water runs off collects around the edges, making the edges moister than they would be otherwise. The extra moisture allows better growth in specific spots.

Bat Cave is another of the highlight features. Bat Cave is also a lava tube and provides habitat for several species of bat. The Mexican Freetailed Bat uses the cave in the summer and migrates south for the winter. Little Brown Bats, Pallid Bats, and Townsend’s Big Eared Bats are year round residents.

There is an interpretive sign here that mentions that bats can eat up to 600 mosquitoes per hour. The world has about 900 species of bats with 10 having been found in El Malpais. (In 2011, the bat caves of El Malpais have been closed to recreational use due to the fungus associated White Nose Syndrome bat illness that has been spreading across the country.)

There were at least two eruptions at El Calderone. One created the black cinders and the other created the red cinders. The red cinders contain a higher amount of iron. The trail guide mentions that lava bombs up to three feet in diameter were hurled from El Calderone and can be observed along the base.

The crater of El Calderone has a good growth of Ponderosa Pines. The trail into the crater runs along a long lava trench that exits from the side of the crater. I walked this 3 mile trail in about 1:15 hours, but I was in a hurry as there was a summer thunderstorm threatening. The route is smooth without much elevation change and is graveled part of the way. It was an 80 F late June day and I drank a liter of water when I finished, after not drinking any during the hike.

Monument Valley Back Roads

Monument Valley is most frequently visited by using the 17 mile Self Guiding Trail, a dusty and somewhat rough road where visitors use their own vehicles. The guided tours visit the same iconic rock formations, but also get onto rougher roads and find other treasures. Monument Valley Tribal Park is located along the Arizona and Utah border inside the Navajo Nation.

I took the all day tour offered by Goulding's Trading Post. The morning part of the tour visited the Mystery Valley area, finding four Ancestral Pueblo ruins sites and three large arches in addition to the massive De Chelly sandstone rock formations.

After entering Monument Valley along the Self Guiding Trail and viewing the iconic Mittens and John Ford's Point, our group of six turned off the main road to get a closer look at the formations called the Totem Pole and Yei Bi Chei. The guide led a couple of us to a point where sand dunes and desert vegetation provided a more dramatic photo angle. The Totem Pole is 400 feet tall and is among the formations that get featured in movies and commercials.

There are four large arches visited on the guided tour. The first is a large dome shaped alcove with a pothole opening at the top known as Big Hogan. A Hogan is the traditional circular, usually dome shaped dwelling structure with a hole at the top to let out smoke from the fire.

This arch could also be called Eye of the Eagle. The guide had the group lie back on the smooth rock slope at the back of the alcove and look straight up. The ceiling of the dome was such that the arch appeared as the eye of an eagle head, beak and all.

A short walk from Big Hogan Arch is Moccasin Arch. We hit the light right to get the effect of a foot print shining through the opening.

The tour passes through an area called Sand Springs. In this dry desert area with very little vegetation growing, suddenly there is a wash with some flowing water and a single large Cottonwood tree. Echo Cave Ruins is the next stop. This is a large alcove with some small Ancestral Pueblo Ruins. This area is fenced off and a close inspection is not allowed.

A short walk past the Echo Cave is a small petroglyph panel with two of the elusive Kokopelli flute players, both rotated so they seem to be reclining. These two don't seem to have a headdress or feathers that are so often seen. They are associated with a snake in this case.

The third natural arch along the trail is the Ear of the Wind, a poetic name. It is a sandy walk uphill to get a closer view.

The fourth are is also poetically named the Sun's Eye. Along the cliff wall to the left of the arch is a petroglyph panel featuring some big horn sheep.

Throughout the tour the guide pointed out that several Navajo families continue to live in the Monument Valley area where they are without running water and electricity. The Navajo don't live in villages but choose isolated family camps. Most of these families maintain traditional Hogans for ceremonial reasons.

We visited a family that had three traditional Hogans, the largest set up to display weaving of the fabulous Navajo blankets. Several of the blankets on display featured Yei Bi Chei dancers that we had just viewed in their sandstone form. I asked how old this large Hogan was and the answer was 41 years.

The inside showed the well arranged logs with a cribbed roof with a hole in the domed ceiling for the smoke stack. The exterior is packed with earth for insulation against the cold winters. This above ground style of building contrasts with the Ancestral Pueblo pit houses and Kivas that were constructed into the earth.

Mystery Valley Trail in Monument Valley

The Mystery Valley Trail is part of Monument Valley Tribal Park along the Arizona and Utah border inside the Navajo Nation. Mystery is only available to visitors on a guided tour.
 The tour I took was from Goulding’s Trading Post. The route we followed was south from Goulding’s along a dirt road and then entering the park at the southwest corner and following rough sandy roads. From along here there were some distant views of the famous spires, buttes, and mesas over the desert environment.

In mid May the Prickly Pear Cactus was just starting to bloom among the Sage Brush and Mormon Tea. The guide seemed to be more aware than the visitors that a cactus flower foreground with the Monument Valley spires in the distance would be a good picture.

Along the Self Guiding Trail that attracts most visitors to Monument Valley there aren’t any Ancestral Pueblo Ruins sites. Despite the very dry environment here now, there are several small ruins sites in this part of the park. The first one that the tour visited was Square House Ruin, sitting up in a nicely formed bulb of an alcove.

After viewing the ruin from the canyon floor the guide took off up a steep sandstone slope, sticking to the surface like he was a desert big horn sheep. Most of us followed for the elevated view despite the somewhat exposed short trail. To the right of the ruin on the sandstone walls there is a small petroglyph panel showing four or five elongated mountain sheep.

Just around the corner at the same stop there is the Baby Feet Ruins site. There was some confusion among our small group of six when most of us returned to the tour vehicle and the guide was missing. A short search revealed him perched up in the Baby Feet Ruin. This appears to be a small storage site. The guide said that there are some small foot prints near the small structure. Only one of us made the climb up into the site.

There are three large arches along the Mystery Valley Trail. The first one visited was Honey Moon Arch. I thought this one somewhat resembles Broken Arch in Arches National Park.

Nearby Honey Moon Arch is Half Moon Arch. Under the left side there is a large granary storage ruin. There is a spot along the canyon wall that gives a good angle to see the granary.

The third arch on the Mystery Valley Trail is the Lone Pine Arch, named for a small Pinon Pine high on the cliff on the right. This looks like a pothole type of arch. The main sandstone layer forming all the scenery is the De Chelly layer, which may be the same as the Cedar Mesa Sandstone. The valley floor is the Cutler formation and the sandstone is capped with the Shinarump layer that sometimes has been mined for Uranium.

We stopped for lunch in a canyon that was the site of the Many Hands Ruin. This small floor level ruins site is very rich in pictographs, with dozens of mostly white hand prints covering the walls. I thought that this would be a very famous site if it was located in an area with easy public access.

Only a few people per day take the guided tour here so this rich site gets only a few visitors. Besides all the hands there are some large elongated square shouldered humanoid figures, also in white.

At the upper end of this same canyon there is another ruins site called the Many Houses Ruin. This site had several low structures spread along a long curving alcove. Most of our group skipped the short walk to this site, resting and waiting for the grilled hamburger lunch prepared by the guide.

There were picnic tables and a grill in position and a tasty lunch was prepared very quickly. A small box provided by Gouldings included chips, a cookie, and an orange. After lunch we continued on to the back roads of the popular Monument Valley part of the park.