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The Ojito Badlands
New Mexico's newest wilderness area
GETTING STARTED
DIRECTIONS The BLM administered Ojito Wilderness Area lies about 40 miles northwest of Albuquerque near San Ysidro village off U.S. Highway 550.
WHEN TO GO Relatively low elevation means hot summers but excellent hiking throughout the rest of the year, even winter depending on recent weather conditions. At only 12,000 acres, Ojito may be diminutive but still has it all.
MORE INFO Kathy Walters, recreation specialist, Albuquerque BLM office, 505-761-8700
The New Mexico Mountain Club sponsors regular group outings to Ojito; New Mexico Mountain Club, PO Box 4151, University Station, Albuquerque, N.M. 87196
For a confirmed desert rat like me, this little cross-country jaunt across the Ojito badlands is particularly rewarding. Ojito was declared official wilderness in October 2005, the first in New Mexico in 17 years, after a long political fight orchestrated by the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance and the Middle Rio Grande chapter of the Sierra Club.
Grinning broadly, thinking that the published articles I wrote on the Ojito may have been helpful to the effort, I thread my way through a sprawling maze of avant-garde "hoodoo" galleries, pausing frequently to appreciate the intricate details. Weirdly shaped pinnacles, spires, and fins are sculpted from white, yellow, and tangerine sandstone. They range from massive 40-feet-tall towers to tiny mushroom shapes just inches high. Many columns sport bright-red cap rocks eroded into such thin, delicately branching shapes that they resemble corral reefs. Others have been worn all the way through by oval windows.
Soaring, multi-hued mesas guard these natural sculpture gardens. Their sheer cliffs and banded sides form mineral tinted, rainbow backdrops with hints of green, blue, and violet.
In some places, the gritty sandstone is fashioned into sensuous contours where closely spaced, parallel seams from the original 80-million-year-old beaches have been burnished with patterns that resemble curving wood grain. Bright-red, strangely eroded, balancing boulders lay scattered along these smoothly flowing surfaces as if dropped from the sky. In other places, the bedrock is curiously pitted and honeycombed with countless bubble-like openings and tiny arches. At times, the scene resembles a spooky, otherworldly Sci-Fi movie set. But, mostly, the badlands evoke the good-natured humor of a Dr. Seuss book.
Expansive, 360-degree vistas take in views of the Jemez volcanic peaks, the brilliant red Nacimiento range, cylindrical Cabezon Butte, and the blue-gray silhouette of the Sandias. Cross-country trekking offers a montage of colorful, baroquely detailed rock sculptures and interesting desert plant life. Picturesque old trees top the list of plants, which also includes a rare cactus and one wildflower, the Townsends aster, found nowhere else on the planet. Wildlife is prolific although the only kinds you will likely encounter are the ubiquitous lizards and the occasional jackrabbit or red-tailed hawk.
Archeologists have identified some 500 ancient sites with artifacts spanning more than 10,000 years of human habitation in the area, including Folsom points shaped by America's oldest "paleo-Indians," impressive petroglyphs, and a dozen small Anasazi-style pueblos. Petrified wood abounds in some hoodoo galleries and dinosaur fossils lie exposed in others. Ojitos' 15 minutes of fame arrived back in 1985 when New Mexico Natural History Museum paleontologists excavated the fossilized remains from the largest dinosaur yet discovered, the aptly named Seismosaurous.
Ojito's scenic and geologic diversity is carved from a mere 600-feet-thick section of sedimentary layer cake. The multi-colored sandstone and shale beds chronicle the slow expansion of an ancient inland sea. A large meandering river deposited the Morrison formation, Ojito's oldest and lowest layer, beginning about 144 million years ago during the Jurassic period. In other western states, the well-known Morrison formation has produced the most exceptional dinosaur fossils in the world, primarily the long-necked, plant eaters known as sauropods. The Ojito has divulged eight vertebrae and several leg bone fragments from the 120-feet-long, 100-ton Seismosaurous.
The Morrison layers are topped by younger Dakota sandstone formed about 80 million years ago along the shoreline of an encroaching ocean - petrified beaches. While these layers don't hold many fossils, they have produced impressive hoodoo sandcastles. Finally, the Mancos shales, laid beneath deep, offshore water, filled with fossil shells from various marine creatures. Uplift and erosion have created so many classic geological features that a half dozen major universities from around the country use the Ojito as an outdoor teaching laboratory.
Whatever the rationale, academic or recreational, saving the Ojito, like the Bisti and De Na Zin in the early '80s, is hopefully part of a continuing process to recognize and protect more of the amazing San Juan Basin badlands.
Info Box: Getting Started
DIRECTIONS The BLM administered Ojito Wilderness Area lies about 40 miles northwest of Albuquerque near San Ysidro village off U.S. Highway 550.
WHEN TO GO Relatively low elevation means hot summers but excellent hiking throughout the rest of the year, even winter depending on recent weather conditions. At only 12,000 acres, Ojito may be diminutive but still has it all.
MORE INFO Kathy Walters, recreation specialist, Albuquerque BLM office, 505-761-8700; The New Mexico Mountain Club sponsors regular group outings to Ojito; New Mexico Mountain Club, PO Box 4151, University Station, Albuquerque, N.M. 87196
Michael Richie is an Albuquerque-based writer who travels the world but never tires of exploring local adventure spots. You can learn more about New Mexico's badlands by visiting his website phototreknm.com
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