Hey everyone,

After about a month on the road of hiking, backpacking, and rafting, I have TON of photos to share. So I'm going to start at the top and write a few blogs for all of the parks we visited.

This was the ultimate go with the flow, little/last minute planning roadtrip. Most of the time it worked out well, but there were definitely a few hiccups where some good buddies saved the day by bailing us out. Because we were going to be backpacking in a few of the parks we first had to roll through Cortez, CO and visit the good people at Osprey Packs to get some TLC on both of our packs. Not to pitch it too hard, but I can’t say enough good things about Osprey. Their gear is top notch and in the rare instance that it breaks on you, they will bend over backward to get you back on the trail. We showed up with two packs and the repair office had fixed both in about an hour. Now that we had our gear we hit the road south for the Land of Enchantment.

We pulled into El Malpais just in time to hit the visitor center, get the lay of the land, and get a free caving permit. Then we got a free campsite for a few nights at El Morro Campground so that we would have the chance to hike and explore the lava tubes in El Malpais and explore the trails in El Morro. I want to preface with the fact that I didn’t know anything about either monument upon arrival. I'm so glad that I had the chance to explore both of them. I would consider them “sleeper parks” because they fly under the radar for most people. After talking with the ranger at the El Malpais Visitor Center, we decided to check out Big Skylight, Junction, and Giant Ice caves. It was like being transported to Hawaii. Dormant cinder cone, shield, splatter cone, etc. type volcanoes were everywhere. And if you have ever been to landscape that has had lava flows you know how rugged it is. But somehow life finds a way. Trees, shrubs, and flowers all grow directly out of the ‘a’a lava flows. The first cave we got to was Big Skylight Cave, which was very cool. It’s a giant lava tube that is slowly collapsing in on itself, forming lava skylights and bridges. We hiked all the way to the back of the cave and as we got further and further away from the entrance the light slowly faded until we were in complete darkness. After exploring that cave we hiked to Giant Ice Cave, and then Junction Cave. Junction cave was great for photography because it was a little smaller than either of the other two caves and was long and fairly straight. We had a few bats flying around inside the cave, also very cool. 

Giant Skylight Cave Hiker in Junction Cave Lava Tube Bridge Mount Taylor 11,301 Giant Skylight Cave Looking Out Hiking into the Dark Giant Skylight Entrance Hiker viewing the Skylight

The next day we packed up and hiked around in El Morro. There is only about 2.5 miles of trail in the monument but it is a very unique place. It is the only guaranteed water source in the area for miles and has attracted people for hundreds of years including ancestral puebloans, the Spanish, surveyors etc. indicated through sandstone inscriptions. It’s a very small monument but if you are in the area it’s definitely worth a stop.

El Morro Sunset El Morro with Composite Volcano in the Distance Box Canyon Hiker Ramon 1709 E. Long

After hiking the loop we got back on the road headed for Carlsbad Caverns National Park. I've done some extensive exploring there so I'll just link to an old blog if you're interested in seeing photos. But while we were there we hit the Natural Entrance, Big Room, King's Palace, Hall of the White Giant, Lower Cave, and Spider Cave.

After Carlsbad Caverns we headed to White Sands National Monument to backpack in the dunes for the evening.