2 mile hike and more

6/21/2019
This morning bright and early we headed out for El Morro National Monument. It’s about 45 minutes away. It’s the furthest away for our planned excursions so we decided to do it first. It’s also the furthest from the expressway incase we don’t get everything checked off our list this time, anything else will be closer to the expressway.

So, just a few miles down the road we get stopped for a paving crew just setting up, while we probably sat there less that 10 minutes it sure felt longer.

The temperature’s expected to be in the high 80’s low 90’s today with cloudless skies and setting for the construction, we were sure in was going to be uncomfortably hot by the time we got there. It turns out we could have sat in the construction a little longer. We arrived at 8:40, The trail is behind a gate that didn’t open until 9:00.

The trail starts off as an easy 1/2 mile paved loop past the only reliable water source for about 40 miles in any direction. So it stands to reason that it was a popular camping spot.

The pool is at the base of some soft sandstone cliffs. Starting with petroglyphs then the Spanish as early as 1605, That’s 15 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Later settlers headed west and soldiers signed their names and dates. The Spanish wrote notes and one poem. By writing I mean laboriously scratching their names or words into the face of the rock. Many of the early American settlers took the time to smooth a square of rock before signing their name. Some names looked hastily carved in the rock while others were flowery script or cursive.

Once past the many inscriptions it was UP to the top of the cliff by a bunch of switchbacks, here most of the trail was asphalt. It was getting pretty warm hoping up and I feared we would bake once we reached the top. Actually it was just the opposite, it was quite cool and the wind was blowing, later before we started our descent we had to take off our hats or risk having them blown off our heads and lost forever.

This trail was created back in the 30’s. What they did is carve two lines in the rocks, you stay between the lines and your on the trail. The trail also took us past a partly excavated Pueblo that may have had as many as 875 rooms and housed as many as 1500 people. The downward part of the trail was mostly steps, and just like going up once we left the top there was no wind and you could just feel the heat building.

More words and pictures below these.

Then on the way home we took this county, dirt rough at times, road. We get back in there several miles and they are doing a controlled burn on one of the side roads we wanted to take.

This area is all lava from the many ancient volcanos here. Miles and miles of lava from eons of eruptions. About 1/3 of the drive was in an open forest, with enough variation to keep the drive interesting, however unknown to us, the last 2/3 rds was BORING. Flat grasslands except it wasn’t grass just some kind of short mostly greenish growth. The road was rough with tire tracks or over lava rocks.

Once we hit pavement we stopped at sandstone bluff over look that overlooked the valley filled with lava.

The lava field.