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A Photo Essay
Exploring The Jemez: A Wonderland Awaits an Hour North of Albuquerque
Northern New Mexico is old. How old? Well, an estimated 125,000 years ago, one of North America’s largest volcanoes erupted in a fiery burst and created Valles Caldera, now protected as Valles Caldera National Preserve. The volcano is now dormant, but the most recent eruption, which occurred about 75,000 years ago, created the glorious spire of Battleship Rock. It also resulted in the Banco Bonito obsidian flow, and it deposited extensive layers of ash across a wide region.
Time eventually preserves this volcanic ash as “tuff,” a soft, easily weathered rock, like the large tuff deposits found at nearby Bandelier National Monument, close to Los Alamos. But visitors to Albuquerque won’t have to travel quite so far to see a variety of “hoodoos,” the fantastical shapes formed from “tuff.” They’re dispersed over a very large area — in fact the Jemez Mountains in total encompass roughly 1,344,000 acres! Looking carefully from its lofty summits, you’ll see numerous canyons filled with these fascinating sculptural forms. In addition to the Paliza Goblins, and the Hoodoo Trail in the adjacent BLM-managed Ojito Wilderness, hoodoos and sculpted cliffs line the road from the Gilman Tunnels to its intersection with the highway that leads to Fenton Lake State Park, a cool spot for camping…
