The Zuni-Acoma Trail, El Malpais National Mounument, New Mexico

 It's been a while since we've taken our Sprinter out on an adventure. The spring brought us more than just good weather and sunshine. We also had a buyer for our business, the Silver City KOA, and closed on the sale in June. We're officially retired and ready for more Travels of the Mercury adventures.

Destination Malpais. We're planning a 6-week vacation for the latter part of the summer and took the Sprinter out on a shake down cruise. Our destination was the Grants KOA in Grants, New Mexico to visit our friends, Keith & Susann, the owners of the KOA. They're great people and have good info so it's a great place to stay while you explore this interesting area. We also wanted to hike the Zuni-Acoma Trail through the Malpais.

Into the bad lands. Our hike begins at the west trailhead. The trail is all very fine until you enter the lava flow. (photo 1) Choppy, uneven terrain are the rule for this hike. There's no elevation gain as this is a flow but also no way to construct a trail. (photo 2)The trail is a cairned route and to follow it you must move from cairn to cairn, spotting the next one before you more forward. Getting off-route may mean getting lost, dehydration, heat stroke, or death. Sounds dramatic but it's happened to people out there. (photo 3)

Interesting features. The trail winds it's way into and around interesting features of crevasses, waves and collapsed lava tubes. You can see how the lava flowed and bubbled. Footing is solid but cracks and loose rock can be ankle turners if you don't pay attention. (photo 4)

Along the trail Jim finds a bubble of lava like a standing wave rising out of the flow. (photo 5).

The Zuni-Acoma Trail is 7.5 miles across the lava flow and takes about 6+ hours which tell you something about the difficulty of walking on lava.

El Malpais has a ranger station on both the east and west sides of the lava field making it convenient to get information about hiking. There are primitive campgrounds but the roads are primitive and rough.

Camping at Apache Creek. On the way home we camped at a primitive Apache National Forest campground and were surprised to find we had it all to ourselves.

The Bee Balm was in bloom and I photographed a hummer feasting on the flowers. The summer rains have brought green and an abundance of wildflowers to our beautiful mountains here in southwest New Mexico.

Our next trip will take us to Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Utah.

See you down the road.

Jackie