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| El Malpais National Monument |
Our three primary destinations were all places I have
been to (some many times) and have blogged about.
Our destinations included Petrified Forest National Park …
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| A petrified log |
Saguaro National Park …
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| Distant cacti |
Grand Canyon National Park …
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| Brilliant colors |
As I said, it was a very quick trip. We hoped we’d have
enough time to actually see something rather than just drive from place to
place.
We made great time on our trip to Petrified Forest. We left
early on a Wednesday morning and stopped for lunch at the historic Frontier Restaurant in Albuquerque (she had a Frontier burrito; I had a green chile
cheeseburger).
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| Good for basic old school New Mexican cuisine |
We were making such good time, we decided to stop at El Malpais National
Monument. I blogged about El Malpais in 2014.
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| Overlooking a vast lava flow |
Located in northwestern New Mexico, El Malpais National
Monument preserves a dramatic volcanic field and cliffs that overlook it. The
name is from the Spanish "malpaís," meaning badlands.
I found
this interesting because, even with the lava, these lands aren’t as bad as
others I have been to.
It was named by Spanish explorers as they detoured around unrelenting flows of basalt on their quest for gold and silver.
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| Sandstone Bluff Overlook |
Part of
the Zuni-Bandera volcanic field on the southeast margin of the Colorado Plateau,
El Malpais is home to one of the most complete sequences of lava flows in the
country. It also features lava tube cave systems, cinder cones, spatter cones and other
intriguing volcanic features.
The area around El Malpais was used for resources,
settlements and travel routes by Native Americans, Spanish
colonial explorers and pioneers. The Native American Puebloan cultures were part of the vast Chaco culture.
In the 1940s the Malpais lava field was one of the eight candidate
sites considered by the Manhattan Project to test detonate the first atomic
bomb, which ultimately occurred to the south at White Sands Proving Ground. The
Department of Defense did use the site as a bombing range to train pilots
during World War II.
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| Bomb damage; Photo: Albuquerque Journal |
After the war, the Bureau of Land Management became the
administrator of the area. El Malpais became a National Monument in 1987.
It is a very large park. We only had time to stop at the
Sandstone Bluffs Overlook, which is one of the best places to see the vast lava
field.
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| Sandstone Bluffs |
Then, we drove to La Ventana Arch, one of New Mexico’s
largest natural arches. We walked the quarter-mile path to the base of the arch
and took a few photos before heading on our way.
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| La Ventana |
We drove a bit farther,
through an area called the Narrows, before turning around to head toward
Petrified Forest. This is a vast area and New Mexico is filled with interesting places to see. This was actually an Arizona trip, so we had to ignore all the great Land of Enchantment stops.
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| Sandstone cliff |
We were hoping to get to Petrified Forest in time for a
quick drive in before it closed for the evening. For that reason, we skipped
nearby El Morro National Monument.
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| El Morro National Monument, 2014 |
That was unfortunate because, despite our best efforts, we didn’t make it to
Petrified Forest until almost 5:00 p.m. and the park closes at 5:00. I will
talk about that ridiculous closing time in my next post.
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| Northern Arizona/New Mexico is remote |
All we had time to do was stop at the Visitor Center and get our Passport stamps so that we wouldn’t have to stop in the morning. Then, we just headed on to Holbrook, Arizona, 25 miles away,
where we stayed for the night. Petrified Forest is very remote and there is no
close-by lodging.
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| Caty, right, and me at El Malpais |
Trip date: March 20-23, 2019
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