Life is good!!

I have always been a sucker for waterfalls, even little dribbles as long as the water drips a couple of feet down. So, when I noticed a sign pointing down a gravel road indicating a possible lava falls, I slammed on the brakes, backed up, and aimed down that road. This led to the Lava Falls Trailhead.

The concept of a lava falls instantly piqued my interest. The sign at the trailhead pointed out that the 1.25 mile loop treks over a 3,900 year old lava flow that burbled out of the earth’s belly through a couple hundred vents. There are two kinds of lava: 1) A’a lava (ah-ah). This is the thick sticky stuff and it is usually associated with cone build ups. 2) Pahoehoe lava (pa-hoy-hoy). This stuff flows easier and tends to run out of vents. It’s called a shield volcano and it is the same kind of flow going on in Hawaii right now.

The huge lava field we walked over, called the McCarty lava flow, is mostly pahoehoe. The slabs of slag produced an alien landscape, both hideous and intoxicatingly beautiful. Even after nearly 4,000 years, the porous black and brown slabs haven’t come close to breaking down into anything resembling soil. Only the occasional grotesquely twisted dwarf pinion or ponderosa pine even tried to make a stand in the heaps of rock. Although tiny, these deformed trees are actually hundreds of years old.

There were giant sink holes where the big slabs collapsed under their own weight when a big ancient gas bubble burped, leaving an underground void. There were flows that flowed over previous flows. At the furthest point of the trail loop, a short spur led to a giant bowl. I’m not sure how it formed, but it formed a huge grotesque natural amphitheater.

To mark the trail, piles of lava chunks were stacked every 50’ or so along the walkway. These are called cairns. Native Americans invented this system of trail demarcation in these barren wastelands, however ancient peoples all over the world used this simple but effective method.

But what about the lava falls? A half mile down the trail we came across a steepish hill where a wide river of lava cascaded over a previous lava flow. It just froze into place. With a little imagination you could envision the cascading lava in the ribbed formations that are still clearly visible.

Overall, the otherworldliness of the place mesmerized me. The heaps, just haphazardly tossed and thrown about; the bits of life trying to find some kind of existence; the flows where the more slippery lava bunched up; the black rock contrasting with the browns from oxidizing iron embedded in the lava rock; and the deep sinkholes with secret little cave passages fascinated me to no end.

This finger of lava stopped in a valley of sand. The demarcation between the lava flow and the desert sand was fascinating.

This is an example of a cairn - a stack of lava rocks used to show the trail.

These twisty but hardy pines are far older than they look.

This is an example of the more viscous a’a lava. It bunches up in rockier forms - no ribs or round bubbles.

This is the lava falls. The runnier pahoehoe lava flows faster. When it hardens, like in this cascade, it forms ribs.

The brown coloration is from oxidized iron in the lava.

When the spell finally broke, we drove off the to find the Chain of Craters Backcountry Scenic Byway. If that doesn’t sound promising, what does? The road, or what was called a road, was just too rough. We picked our way for 5 miles, but if we hoped to have anything left of the van, we just had to bail out. So far on our trip, this was our first bust.

This looked so promising.

They weren’t kidding when they said the road looks good in the beginning but may not be farther in. Actually, within 10’ it badly deteriorated.

The highlight of the day turned out to be The Narrows Rim Trail, a vista-rich 3.75 mile out-and-back path (7.5 miles total) along the top of the tall sandstone bluffs that we have been admiring for days. From this summit rim, we could discern that the entire valley was a black, very young lava field. The immensity of the field was a surprise. New Mexico has several such huge lava fields that follow a fault-line. This McCarty field is the largest lava field in America.

The Gaia GPS app put our beginning elevation at a tad over 7,100’. We gained another 405’ during our hike, putting us over 7,500’. Wanda wisely drank several half-liters of water before the hike and during the hike. She reported to feeling just peachy the whole way. We didn’t quite get the whole 7.5 miles in, but we did log 6.5 miles. The total mileage for the day was 7.75 miles. Not bad for a couple of flat-landers.

The entire valley between the sandstone mesa we are on and the mountains in the distance is lava flow.

Dave and Wanda

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