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Plaza Blanca Badlands, New Mexico

The "Sierra Negra" Badlands

story and photos by Michael Richie

Getting Started

WHERE: You can see Plaza Blanca from U.S. 84 to the north as you approach Abiquiu from the east. Take the El Rito turnoff and go half a mile to a gravel parking lot on the left. Carson National Forest land begins here. Follow your eyes up to the White City. The 3- to 4-mile hike requires route finding and steep hiking across washes and over mesa tops. The badlands cover a huge area. Always carry plenty of water and sun protection because the white terrain reflects light.

WHEN: Just about year round. The car access is paved but the washes and badlands can be impassible and dangerous during or after significant precipitation.

MORE INFO: Recreational information about Plaza Blanca is scarce but the Carson National Forest map shows the area.

Making the steep, scenic hike across constantly changing terrain to Plaza Blanca, I watch the early-morning New Mexico sun illuminate the intricate formations soaring before me. Fantastically sculpted, 500-feet-high, bone-white cliffs come to life as oblique sun rays weave a tapestry of highlights and shadows. The ghostly alabaster expanse metamorphoses into an image reminiscent of a mythical city, shining in gentle light. Tapering spires pierce the horizon. Clusters of towers frame huge amphitheaters, creating a skyline of a complexity and grandeur that rivals celebrated cityscapes. It's no wonder that the fantastic scene is known locally as "Plaza Blanca," or the White City.

Difficult as it is to imagine, this serene landscape had a violent birth. Carved into the mountainside, the formation labyrinth is fashioned from tuff, a compacted volcanic ash formed during a cataclysmic event known as a pyroclastic flow. I'm exploring what I'm in the habit of calling the "Sierra Negra Badlands." It doesn't have an official title. The "negra" - black in Spanish - in Sierra Negra refers to a dark basalt cap layer on the 8,000-feet-high, flat-topped peak, whose sloping shoulders form the badlands.

Located in Carson National Forest a few miles from Abiquiu, the squat, volcanic heap marks the southernmost tip of the Brazos Range, which extends north past Chama into Colorado. Thirty miles southwest, the massive Jemez caldera self-destructed just a million years ago in a mega-explosion that deposited volcanic debris as far away as Kansas. Together, the Brazos and Jemez ranges form a high-country wedge squeezed upward between deep faults bordering the Rio Grand Rift Valley on the east and the San Juan Basin on the west. Beginning about 15 million years ago, extensive uplift and down dropping along these fault lines caused widespread volcanic activity that continued sporadically until relatively recent times. The eruptions mostly deposited light-colored, light-weight, silica-rich ash formed from molten, recycled crust rocks that solidified again into tuff. But as the faults penetrated even deeper into the iron- and manganese-rich mantle, they unleashed darker, denser basalt flows as well.

On the final approach to the white city, coal black basalt boulders line the wash bottoms in stair-step jumbles that make for interesting scrambling and, at times, climbing. The 3-mile cross-country hike up to Plaza Blanca is filled with surprises. The most impressive formations form a protruding ridge about halfway up the peak's south face, but weird badlands lie hidden in deeply carved washes and isolated pockets along the entire route.

Countless striations and cavities embellish the fragile tuff sculptures so that they appear almost sponge-like in consistency. At times, I'm walking through the gigantic skeleton of some downed monster. In other places, the hoodoos resemble armies of spooky stone warriors or huge mushroom forests. I keep reminding myself that all this strangeness evolved from the random interactions of wind and water on once incandescent ash. In some areas, a pronounced layering effect enhances the already rich textures. Unusual for tuff, the thin layers suggest that some ash was transported and then redeposited via more sedate sedimentary processes after the initial fiery eruptions.

You can choose from several routes up to Plaza Blanca, but my favorite passes the most impressive, high-desert monument I've seen. This massive edifice somehow blends the exoticness of an Egyptian temple, the sweeping lines of a European cathedral and the precise dignity of a Greek Parthenon. My fascination begins with the surprising symmetry. Sixteen huge columns are grouped eight to a side of a towering, beautifully curving spire framed by uncharacteristically colorful mesas that climb the layers to a dome-shaped peak - an incredible gateway for the metropolis waiting on the ridge's other side.

The final route up a sheer-walled canyon narrows to a crevice, then a tunnel, and finally a hand-over-hand scramble before cresting the ridgetop and the first views of Plaza Blanca.

Here, otherworldly fortresses soar above a curving, half-mile bench. In the middle, like a giant sundial, a solitary, 60-feet-high obelisk casts a long blue shadow. The amazingly detailed, ornamented cliffs and clusters of towering volcanic hoodoos stretch along the mountain's flanks for several miles. I realize with a grin that it will take several more trips to see it all.

Albuquerque-based freelance writer Michael Richie has visited 42 countries and has published hundreds of stories and even more photographs about diverse outdoor topics, from trekking in Nepal and Tasmania to exploring New Mexico's many hidden, high-desert adventure spots.