My aching legs tell me we had a busy day! Visited El Malpais National Monument outside of Grants, New Mexico. It snowed last night and the dirt roads in the park were impassable (even with 4WD) so we followed the advice of the ranger and stayed on paved surfaces. The Park is a huge lava flow with a chain of 30 cinder cones running roughly along the continental divide. Many places are miles of solid lava of undetermined depth.
There are miles of lava tubes (some collapsed and making caves), but unfortunately these were down an impassable road so we will have to explore them on another trip. We walked a long trail across the lava flows (Lava Falls area, picture 2,3) and climbed a sandstone cliff and viewed the lava fields (Narrows Rim trail, picture 1). We also hiked to La Ventana, the largest accessible natural arch in NM picture 4).
All in all, a great day, but I've seen enough lava for quite some time.
Wow, cool stuff.
ReplyDeleteFinch and Marianne say that doesn't look much like lava. Marianne says it doesn't look like lava because there are trees growing on it. Finch says lava is supposed to be orange.
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