Sunday we made the trip to Page, Arizona. It was very windy but we got here without incident. It got so windy in the afternoon after we set up that the trailer was shaking and I couldn’t walk Matey far because of the blowing sand.
Happily, today was much less windy as I had booked a tour for us into Antelope Canyon X. Antelope Canyon is a very famous slot canyon just outside of Page. It’s on the Navajo Reservation so the only way to see it is by taking a guided tour. There are several tour companies providing tours to the Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon and they are said to be quite crowded. I found this tour to Antelope Canyon X online and it had good reviews. Only Taadidiin Tours gives tours here and so it is not as crowded.
Antelope Canyon X is at the very start of Antelope Canyon. We entered between two sections of slot canyon.
Our group of eight plus our guide entered the north, or downstream section of the canyon first.
The wind and water sculpted walls in some places no longer looked like rock.
We were there at noon and the colors were beautiful.
Both the depth and the formations were awe inspiring.
I managed to capture a sunbeam.
When we turned back our guide said the canyon continued for 23 miles.
Then we walked back through a more open section of canyon and entered the southern, upstream slot.
That was shorter, but perhaps even more beautiful.
We followed this part of the canyon up to a small chamber.
This was the very start of Antelope Canyon, the outflow from the desert above. Our guide pointed out the cuts part way up, these were new canyons forming, baby Antelopes.
Then it was up and out and we left all this wondrous beauty behind.
Bud hurt his foot, probably last Friday, and exacerbated the injury playing disc golf on the very hilly course on Monday. So we’ve been doing driving tours for the last few days. I was about out of destinations to suggest so I consulted “All Trails” an App our son-in-law, Sean, introduced to me. Browsing for a short trail that perhaps Bud could walk I found the “Big Warrior Panel Trail”, a 0.2 mile loop that was listed as easy, where dogs were welcome and there were pictographs. Sounded good. The App will also give you directions. It was 27 miles away, Bud was up for it so off we went.
Well, only 9 of the 27 miles were paved. We encountered this bridge on the first of the unpaved roads. It was long…
but not wide! And not really paved, either.
The roads got narrower from there.
And the area got more and more remote. We drove miles up a shallow canyon filled with natural gas wells and pipelines. There was nothing at all to indicate there was any trail. Just as we reached the end of the blue line on my driving directions we saw a small brown sign that said “Main Panel” and there was a turn around with a place to park. And there, sure enough, was the trail.
It was pretty, but didn’t look too promising. There was a registration book, so I signed in. The last person to sign in was two days ago.
But, oh my, the petroglyphs we found! You could walk right up to them, too.
They were stunning.
And there was a sign to help you understand what you were seeing.
These were way more interesting than the ones we saw at Petroglyph National Monument.
We saw all these and more within 0.4 mile of the truck!
And we had the whole area to ourselves. Thank you All Trails and thank you Sean.
We came here to Bloomfield, New Mexico last Sunday. There is real variety here.
This is called the Four Corners Area because it is the only place in the United States where four states meet. The actual point is about 60 miles from here and we drove out there yesterday.
This is in the Navajo Nation, and there are miles of wide open arid lands here. The far rock you see in this photo is Shiprock, and it is about 30 miles away.
This one is called Chimney Rock.
But there are also tree filled river flats, like this park in Farmington.
Two river meet here, the Animas…
and the San Juan; shown here along the river walk in Bloomfield.
So along with the desert flora like this cactus,
I found lilacs!
There is a variety of weather, too.
From this calm, blue skied day on Monday, when we played disc golf…
to blustery Tuesday, when we drove to Angel’s Peak. The wind was howling and the sky was filled with dust.
You can get a variety of weather in a single day, too. Just drive north, and up. Bloomfield is in the high desert at 5,456 feet above sea level.
We drove 45 miles north to Durango, Colorado. It’s also another 1100 feet up at an altitude of 6,522’. Here the Animas River doesn’t have a river flat, but hurries through town. And it was pretty cool, early spring.
We drove another 34 miles and 4,000 feet to the top of Coal Bank Pass. There was snow all around, even flurries in the air and it was 35 degrees. The next pass, Red Mountain Pass on past Silverton, was closed!
We happily returned to the high desert, where even though it was a cool day it was still 62 degrees. And if the wind isn’t blowing too hard, we can see those snowy peaks.
I try to book us into public campgrounds when I can. We have no generator or solar panels so we aren’t able to camp without electricity and in the west that really limits the public campgrounds. Nearly all the Federal camping (National Park, National Forest, Bureau of Land Management) is “dry” camping, no water or electric. I was happy to find a city campground north of Albuquerque that had water and electric so I booked us for four days.
The Coronado Campground was run by the state, but is now operated by the city of Bernalillo. The state still operates the Coronado Historic Site that is adjacent.
The sites aren’t huge, but they are much bigger than most private campgrounds and the shelters are very nice.
Since we were right next to the Coronado Historic Site we decided to go see it. It is the ruins of a pueblo, this one of the Kuaua people, who spoke Tiwi. In the 1930’s an archaeologist came looking for evidence that the conquistador Coronado had been here. Instead he found murals painted on the walls of a square Kiva. The paintings had been done on the adobe, and later more adobe and new paintings applied. There were some 80 layers of painting. Through very painstaking efforts about 30 panels from several layers were preserved. Of these 14 are on display at the visitor center. These murals are the oldest American paintings in existence (not counting pictographs, paintings on canyon walls). Also, the Kiva was reconstructed and a native artist recreated one layer of the murals inside. Bud and I had a wonderful guided tour of all of this, we were the only ones with the docent. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take pictures of the murals or inside the Kiva, so I came away with no photos.
Meanwhile, when I went to purchase our tickets for the site online, they offered a two day ticket that included the Jemez Historic Site. Since that is 41 miles from here, and off up in the mountains, and Matey was allowed there, we decided to do that.
That too is the ruins of an old pueblo, this of the Jemez people (it’s pronounced HEE meesh, the Spanish contributed the spelling).
This also had a reconstructed Kiva, a round one. A Kiva is mostly underground, so you climb up a short ladder, then down a longer one. There is a hearth near the bottom of the ladder. When in use a smoke fire would be burning so when you came down the ladder you would pass through the smoke and be purified. The square structure in front of the descending ladder is a vent. Again, no pictures are allowed inside the Kiva.
Unfortunately almost nothing remained of the pueblo and the site mostly showed the structures of the Spanish mission the natives were required to build.
The largest structure was the church. This was the second one built on the site. The first was built in 1601, but then the Jemez (and other bands) got disgusted with the Spanish and drove them out. In only twelve years they were back and this time the natives were defeated and in 1621 a new and bigger church was built.
In the end about half the Jemez people died. The Spanish priests gathered the remnants at a place about 13 miles further down the canyon. Their descendants still live there, it is Jemez Pueblo and is self-governing.
The tour didn’t take long, we’d brought sandwiches and it still wasn’t lunch time. I looked online for another attraction nearby and found the Soda Dam was just a couple of miles further on.
I don’t know the people walking on top, but they add scale. can you see the river flowing out from under on the right side?
The fleck of white above the white splash is the sunlight coming through the hole along with the water.
We stopped at a fishing access point to eat our lunch.
The canyon was stunning.
This is the Jemez River further downstream from the Soda Dam.
After lunch we started home. Bud noticed a roadside kiosk with information signs and thought it might tell us what kind of fish were in the river. It didn’t, but it did mention something else nearby, so we took a side road.
We entered a very pretty canyon. Both the canyon and the road got narrower as we went up.
Until we were on a one lane road and went through the Gilman Tunnels. There are two short tunnels blasted through the rock in the 1920’s, originally to let a train through for logging.
We parked above the tunnels and got some pictures of the tunnels and the Rio Guadeloupe Gorge.
When we went back down through the tunnels I held my phone out the window to capture the video below.
I love traveling this way; I can’t wait to see what we discover next!
Sunday we came here, to the High Desert RV Park outside Albuquerque. I know I said we were going to stay a week at El Morro RV Park and Cabins but that didn’t work out. It wasn’t the upside down power plug and it wasn’t the leaking water hydrant, it was the dogs.
The list of rules on line said “all dogs on leash”. The posted rules by the office/cafe said “all dogs on leash”. A posted sign as you pulled into the sites said “all dogs on leash”. But there were four dogs belonging to full time residents, including a Great Pyrenees belonging to one of the campground hosts, that were wandering free. Matey and I met two of the female dogs, a light brown one and the Great Pyrenees, as we set out on a walk. All was fine, sniffing and tail wagging, although I could tell Matey was nervous because the Great Pyrenees was three times his size. Returning from the funky trail in the back we met them again, or maybe it was the other light brown female dog and the Pyrenees, because this time the brown dog raised her hackles and growled and then both of them started to snarl, bark and nip at Matey. He was doing his best to dodge them and I just started yelling “HELP”. The owners came immediately and the dogs obediently retreated, but walking was pretty much ruined for Matey. Not only that, but when confined to her yard the Pyrenees barked at every passing person, dog or vehicle. So we left early.
This place is pretty much the opposite of the last one. It does have sculptures, oddly enough, but these are very well done full sized metal sculptures.
The detail achieved with cut and welded metal is amazing.
Everything here is perfectly aligned and perfectly neat, if a bit sterile. And all the dogs are on leashes!
It was good we came to the Albuquerque area early as we’d been racking up some jobs we needed to do. We both needed shoes. Today we defrosted the refrigerator and freezer (camper units are not self-defrosting) and we also accomplished a new desert chore, getting the dust off everything. We did take the time to play nine holes of disc golf while the fridge thawed.
Yesterday we visited one of three sites with petroglyphs that are part of Petroglyphs National Monument here in Albuquerque.
This one was reported to have more petroglyphs than either of the others.
And dogs were allowed on the trail. Behind Bud and Matey you can see a lot of Albuquerque in the valley.
This was one of my favorite petroglyphs. If you look closely you can see that the pattern extends on both sides of the sharp corner of the rock.
These carvings are from around 1300 AD. No explanations were given of their meanings. They are recent enough that the Pueblo Indians in the area still consider them sacred, and as such, not to be shared outside of the religion.
Tomorrow we move to the planned campground in the area. We will probably visit more of the petroglyphs sites before we leave Albuquerque on Sunday.
That’s the billing for the privately owned ice cave we visited yesterday.
The first part of the tour was a walk around the side of and into the cinder cone crater of the Bandera volcano that erupted 10,900 years ago. That’s the volcano that produced the lava fields I walked on the day before. If you look closely at the photo you can see a couple of places along the top of this truncated cone where nothing is growing. I think the cinders collapse taking any trees with them.
On the way up we encountered this spatter cone. This formed when hot gasses vented bringing molten lava splashing out and solidifying into a cone like this.
The trail up was composed of the same cinders that made up the majority of the cone. There was some more solid lava, but not much.
We got a good view of the lava flow and other volcanoes in the area.
The crater, which has one side blown out where the lava flow came out, is about 1400 feet wide and 800 feet deep. This is looking down into the crater from the end of the trail.
And this is looking up at the rim of the cone.
Many of the trees, like this juniper, are very old and very twisted.
That was the fire part of the tour, although it was cold yesterday with a cutting breeze and we could have used a bit of actual fire.
The ice part of the tour was a visit to a cave formed in a lava tube. These are the first set of steps leading down into the cave.
The Bandera volcano produced a lava flow that is 23 miles long. It has many lava tubes, but the largest is continuous for over 17 miles, the longest known in North America. Much of this tube is collapsed, but some remains as caves and it is one of these caves we were entering.
This is the second set of stairs into the cave. The very deep cave in lava, that is a good insulator, is what has enabled this ice cave to exist.
No one knows for sure how the ice first formed, but it is now 20 feet deep. The oldest ice is 3400 years old. The temperature in this deep hole remains at 31 degrees Fahrenheit and new rain continues to build the ice. The green color is an arctic algae.
The cool entrance to the cave creates an environment where lichen and alpine moss thrive.
To me the history of this land was as interesting as the sights. We talked to the woman who now operates and owns this. The land was bought by her great great grandfather from the railroad. Her grandmother inherited it and asked her father to come and manage it in 1946. He saw the potential and developed it as a tourist attraction. He stopped the mining of the ice, which the previous manager had used to cool drinks for the saloon he ran.
She and her family are very dedicated to preserving these natural wonders and sharing them with others.
Twenty miles east of El Morro National Monument on NM 53 is El Malpais National Monument. El Morro offered the traveler water and shade, El Malpais, the badlands, offered a landscape to avoid.
We drove about five miles down a dirt and gravel county road and then another three or four on a badly rutted dirt park road to get to the Big Tubes Area.
The park road parallels the 10,900 year old Bandera lava flow. The lava flow goes on with tubes and trenches for 17 miles. Here you can see it, nearly as tall as the trees.
It looks more like mine tailings than a natural landscape.
There was a trail taking you back to the “big tubes”, the hollow tubes left behind when the outside lava cools and the inner, molten lava flows on. This was not a trail that Matey could walk on, so Bud and Matey waited while I hiked in to see it and get some pictures.
The only way to tell where to go was to look for the cairns of lava rocks. They were not far apart, but even so it was sometimes hard to pick them out from the general rubble.
After less than half a mile I came to a sign where the trail formed a loop. I was not sure I wanted to go further. I was afraid I might twist my ankle or fall and cut my hands and knees. I decided to go up to the top of a slight hill to my left.
There I found a caved in portion of one of the lava tubes. I’m standing on the edge of the caved in tube and it’s at least 15 feet to the bottom. At the top of the picture you can see the bridge formed by a portion of the tube that remains.
I took my picture and turned back. Even though I had just been this way it took some care to find the cairns.
This is the “soil” after 10,000 years of weathering.
This tree was not having an easy time of it, but it was still alive, still growing.
And this cactus looked like it was getting ready to bloom, rooted in bare lava rocks.
On our way out we stopped at a place where I could climb up and get a shot of the expanse of the lava flow. Not a place to take a horse and wagon!
We returned to the highway and drove another few miles to the oldest lava flow in the monument, El Calderon. This had a nice level trail that all of us could walk.
Here the lava had a thin layer of soil and grass; junipers and Douglas fir were growing, but there were still areas of bare rock.
There were broken lava tubes. Two breaks formed the twin sinks, Bud is in front of the larger one.
It was pretty deep.
The smaller sink was just uphill, on the other side of the trail.
We walked about three quarters of a mile up to two caves that had a common opening. This is Xenolith Cave. A xenolith is a piece of rock found in other rock; usually, as here, rock trapped in igneous magma.
The other, larger cave is Bat Cave. All the caves are now closed.
That did not change our plans, these were not trails we were planning to take!
This older lava flow made a much more pleasing landscape.
But even after 115,000 years of weathering there was barely enough soil to cover the rocks.
El Morro means the headlands. The land gradually rises from the south to the north until the small mesa ends abruptly in a giant sandstone bluff. Beneath the bluff is a pool of water from the outfall of rain and snow from the mesa above. That pool has brought people to the bluff and mesa for thousands of years.
There is a visitor center below the bluff and a hiking trail that takes you up to the mesa, across the top and around the front of the sandstone cliffs.
As the trail rises near the base of the cliff…
you walk through rough darkened areas. This is the biological soil crust and you are asked to stay on the trail and not damage it. The crust is composed of microscopic Cyanobacteria, algae, bryophytes and lichen. It helps to stabilize the soil and prevent run-off of the 16 inches of rain and snowmelt the area gets per year.
There are three sets of stairs that take you fairly quickly up…
until you are walking on top of the mesa.
A short walk brings you to a pueblo that has been partially excavated.
Past the round kiva you can see the outline of the pueblo. Ground radar shows it has 118 rooms around the central plaza.
From there it’s a rather dramatic walk across the top of the headlands.
The etched outline and carved steps of the trail were made by the WPA in the 1930’s.
In the center of the mesa is a box canyon. The trail leads along the east and north sides of it.
It’s fun to walk along, with beautiful views all around.
This is looking back across the box canyon towards the ruins.
And this view is north from the front of the headlands.
This tree was growing at an angle up the side of the rocks.
For some reason this pinnacle of rock stands free in the box canyon.
The trail then leads down to the base of the bluff through a series of switchbacks.
Here the views are just as dramatic.
You can look up and see the railings where you stood at the top.
Erosion continues to carve these rocks.
The trail takes you closer…
and closer…
to the base where the sheer size of the rock walls is overwhelming.
This area is called “Inscription Rock”. There are some ancient petroglyphs and many inscriptions by Europeans that are dated; the earliest is from 1605.
Finally you come to the pool of water at the bottom of the outflow, the reason for all the human activity.
El Morro National Monument is a beautiful and fascinating place to visit.
The Ancient Way Cafe and El Morro RV Park and Cabins came well recommended but it certainly isn’t the well tended gravel parking lot of a KOA.
Most of the sites are full time residents, and like this one have various structures, like this pole and wire fence.
There was no one at the cafe or office as they are closed on Wednesday. Since there are no reservations we went out to find a site. The open sites were not aligned in a uniform way. The utilities are not in standard locations. We tried a pull-through site but it had water and electric on one side and the sewer on the other. We might have been able to make it work, but not in the direction we first entered.
We did find a nice back in site with 50 amp service. The plug for the electric was upside down, but by propping the cover on the box open we managed to connect our cord. We were just finishing up our connections when one of the hosts came by. He was very nice. He apologized but pointed out that a fine stream of water was coming out of the water pipe because it had a hairline crack. He asked that we fill our tank and then shut the water off. Oh well, not really a bother. And we do have cell service and usable wifi.
They have a “Sculpture Trail” behind the RV park.
It was interesting…
but I found the natural beauty…
more compelling…
than the installations.
There was a spur trail that led up to a swing mounted from a tree.
It was strategically placed to give this view of El Morro National Monument. I think they also appreciated the natural beauty.
I hope this place works out because our intention is to stay here for a week!
We are 8046 feet above sea level here in Alpine. So even though this is April in the southern desert there is snow. There’s quite a bit of snow on Old Baldy in the distance.
I was excited to see a patch of snow on our hike yesterday. But as we drove further we saw more than just a patch.
We saw banks of snow.
Some quite large, especially since this is Arizona in April.
With snow comes water…
and meadows. With water and meadows there should be animals. There are elk here.
We saw evidence.
Then last evening Matey and I saw herds of them in the valley behind the RV Park. Unfortunately they were rather far away.
This morning driving to another hike we saw some a bit closer,
and then even closer! About a dozen crossed the road in front of us. We stopped for them and I got a picture of these three. Matey was quite excited to see them.
Matey was also happy to get to walk where he could be off leash. Although I know he smelled elk, and we saw a lot of tracks, we never saw any while walking. Probably just as well, I’m not sure if I could have kept Matey with us if we’d seen any.
We drove to an overlook at the north end of the White Mountains and saw that the desert is down below, waiting for us.
But for now I am happy to be up in the mountains in the trees.
On the Roam Again 