What an amazing site. I’ve seen the lava flows from the air but up close and personal, they look very different. The National Park Service website describes the area as follows…
“The primeval black basalt terrain of El Malpais was created by volcanic forces over the past million years. Molten lava spread out over the high desert from dozens of eruptions to create cinder cones, shield volcanos, collapses, trenches, caves, and other eerie formations. This stark landscape preserves one of the best continuous geologic records of volcanism on the planet.”
This was the second ride of the day after my Epic-less Climb – with a couple hours in between for recovery purposes. Here again, I really didn’t know where I was going nor what to expect. The Forest Service map said there were trails so off I went.
The trailhead was pretty close to the Continental Divide – about a mile. To get there, take route 53 south out of Grants, NM and drive until about 2 miles past the Ice Caves sign and entrance.
A fellow with a four-wheeler at the trail head warned me that it was wet/muddy in spots – particularly on the side trails. The sign seemed to indicate that moisture was not to be messed with.
The initial road/double track was pretty nice. I chugged along enjoying the views and particularly the lava flows. They are amazingly harsh, jagged, and twisted. Even the trees that are now growing (or were growing) fit the scene – very jaggedy-ish (my new word since I couldn’t come with a different adjective).
As usual, I am THOROUGHLY enjoying the peace and quiet.
Suddenly, I find that they Forest Service is doing a controlled burn. I’ve seen this before and it is nothing short of amazing to me. Our Government, it all it’s wisdom, pays good money to have employees gather all loose wood into piles. They then pay good money to have other employees burn these (sometimes very large) piles of wood. That’s all interesting you say. What many people do not know is that there are MANY, MANY people that scavenge the forests every day to scrounge firewood for their winter heat. They are NOT allowed to scavenge in many of these forests and certainly not allowed to come pick up this wood – even after it has been gathered into piles!! It is as if our government has never heard all the global warming crap. Oh wait – they are the biggest spewer of it. Listening to them tell us about greenhouse gasses, that are cars must be more efficient (more expensive), and all that bull-honkey and then WATCHING them start and operate forest fires is just too much for me. The wood is a total waste – at least someone using it to heat their house is accomplishing something. Yeah – let’s have BIGGER/MORE government, then things will get better…. Oh brother…
Anyway, the ride.
After I got out of all the smoke, I was back to peace and quiet – loving it!
I found a side trail, marked as a “Primitive Road” that I knew, from my map, made a nice big loop back onto the main road. So, I took it. This road was much more…. well… primitive. Still very ride-able though, just a lot more rocks. This road took me to an unimproved campsite that was equipped with a toilet! An unimproved toilet that is. Gotta tell you, it felt like a big improvement over the tree’s that I had been using to address my chili dinner issue.
There was a trail extending into the lava flow from this campsite and I figured a few minutes off the bike would do me good. It’s kinda neat – going back hundreds of years, the trails thru these flows was marked with a stack of rocks. So, I followed the rock piles. This lava rock is hard, dangerous looking stuff – very jaggedy-ish. I can imagine a trip and fall onto it would really not make a person happy. Not sure how far I went, maybe a half a mile or so and then back to the bike.
I continued on the loop and in short order, the primitive road became more primitivy. Still rideable though.
Once again, I forgot to start my GPS at the start of the ride so I missed a little. In all, I think it was about 17 miles. Most certainly a VERY nice ride. The main dirt road is very nice – not technical at all and no hard climbs. The ‘primitive road’ certainly wasn’t hard nor technical but there are enough rocks and things to keep it interesting.
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