Angel Peak Trails

The Angel Peak Scenic Area is a 10,000 acre badlands area about 15 miles south of Bloomfield along Highway 550 in northwest New Mexico. Most visitors will enjoy the views from the three rim overlook areas or the campground. There aren’t any official trails but there are some at least two reasonable routes for a hiker.

The small campground is at the end of the rim road. There is a short trail in the campground that leads along the rim to several view points toward 7000 foot Angel Peak. At the east end of the campground the trail leads through an odd turnstile and continues toward an eroded ridge with two fragment peaks of sandstone that is between the campground and Angel Peak.

The route approaching the two peak fragments is something of a knife edge. The way the two peaks line up is similar to the Chimney Rock formation and ruins site near Pagosa Springs, CO. I went as far as the first peak and thought it got too steep after that, but it may be possible to go further.

There are steep layers of sandstone below the clay layers and there is no established route to get to the canyon bottom. I saw a trail on the slopes back toward the campground that looked too steep for hikers and I thought it might be trail for Big Horn Sheep or other wildlife.

There are roads in at the bottom of the badlands but they don’t connect to the rim road in the Scenic Area. There are many gas or oil wells in the area and many service trucks traveling along these roads. My hike along the campground out to the eroded peak and back took about 1:15 hours.

There are other places in the campground area to hike a little below the rim on the clay layer but not many gaps in the sandstone layer and a descent anywhere toward the bottom will be steep.

I found another short hike at the Castle Rock Overlook and Picnic Area. Castle Rock is the second of the three overlooks. The first is named the Sage Overlook and the third is named the Cliffs Overlook. I didn’t find any interpretive signs or brochures in this area describing the geology or biology. The plant life in the badlands is very sparse. It looks there are scattered Junipers along the washes at the canyon bottom.

There is a short trail leading to a view point of a large Castle Rock far across the canyon and a smaller Castle Rock that can be reached by hiking. The trail is a little vague, but you can see where you are headed.

The views from Castle Rock extend beyond the immediate Angel Peak area. To the north the LaPlata Mountains near Durango, CO are visible. Also, Sleeping Ute Mountain and Mesa Verde can be sighted. This short hike takes only 30 minutes.

Cox Canyon Arch Trail

The Cox Canyon Arch Trail is in the canyon country in northwest New Mexico about 3.5 miles south of the Colorado border along Highway 550. The unmarked trail head is west along County Road 2300 for 1.2 miles, then a right turn on County Road 2310 for 2.5 miles, then a right on a dirt track past a gas compression facility.

At the end of the dirt track past the gas plant there are two short side canyons to the left or north and the arch isn’t visible. The unmarked trail starts up the side canyon that is more to the left or west. The arch sits in the area that is between the heads of these two short side canyons.

I walked up the wrong side canyon at first and came to a dead end. There is a shady alcove at the end but I didn’t see any way up to the rim. I retraced my steps and crossed the dry wash and looked over to the east. I spotted the arch in the distance from the sage brush field as I was returning.

There are two layers of short sandstone cliffs to climb past on the way up. I had to look around for a few minutes to find the first notch to climb through. It looks like a step has been carved to make the climb easier. The second cliff is a little trickier, but some handholds have been carved making that spot feasible.

There is an alcove at the head of this short canyon just below the arch. I looked briefly to see if there might be a ruins site there but didn’t see anything. This arch has a 42 ft. span and is 35 ft. high. It somewhat resembles Delicate Arch in Arches National Park and is easy to view from both sides. The return hike only took 15 minutes and my total hike was about 1:20 hours with much of that time spent trying to find the arch and the route.

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.