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El Malpais National Monument

Las Ventanitas Hike

story and photos by Michael Richie

Found in: | Outside | Hiking |

No matter how many times I visit El Malpais National Monument, I never tire of the first glimpse from Sandstone Bluffs Overlook. A short walk up a gritty incline and the view explodes across contorted, black lava fields. Forty miles long and up to 18 wide, the flow is contained on the west by a chain of cinder cones and on the east by picturesque sandstone cliffs and jagged pinnacles. A long serrated mesa edge snakes north for miles toward Mt. Taylor. The 11,301-feet volcano dominates the horizon, a constant reminder of violent forces that shaped the region.
Most visitors to El Malpais drive a scenic loop but I prefer to stop just south of the Las Ventanitas area and walk into it. It's one of my favorite hikes in the Southwest, and what I consider the best-kept secret in this sprawling 576-square-mile Monument. A slow montage of formations unfold from a vantage atop 400-feet-high cliffs. Massive balustrades and towers are carved into 130 million-year-old Dakota Sandstone.
After descending a gently sloping rock ramp to meadows below, sandwiched between impassable lava and the cliff base a sandy strip provides fairly easy walking for miles until the flow meets the mesa. Routes are diverse through this combination obstacle course, amusement park, and grand scale collection of exotically sculpted sandstone monoliths. Staying in the meadows for a while, enjoy the perspective on the formations and then explore an interior garden hidden by protruding fingers of mesa where knife-thin pinnacles, giant dragon's heads and alien spaceships form entertaining labyrinths. Scrambling over oddly shaped statuary and rippling stone ledges, keeping an eye out for for hidden passageways, will bring out the kid in anyone.
Soon, the four natural arches that give the area its name come into view. "Las Ventanitas," or little windows, refers to arches diminutive only in comparison to "La Ventana," the biggest in the state, which lies 10 miles south. Wandering in and out of secret alcoves, pottery shards are scattered in the sand. This vast high desert stretching along the Continental Divide held one of the largest Anasazi populations in the Four Corners. Irrigated fields, farming communities and religious centers dotted the countryside from Mt. Taylor for 75 miles southwest past Zuni Lake.
The Dakota Sandstone shows a beautiful color spectrum including carmen and orange, rich golden yellows and a bright, calamine lotion pink. Some of the best desert varnish art I've seen adorns overhanging mesa walls. Formed by trickling water, these mineral deposits come in stark colors: reds from iron, blacks from manganese, and whites from carbonates. They blend in delicate overlays into a much broader palette coloring the lavishly textured formations.
The second natural arch in line frames a large skylight halfway up a sloping, desert varnished cliff face. An easy climb leads to its base and the pleasant revelation that this is actually a double arch. My route continues north past nonstop formations and another elegantly contoured arch, finally arriving at the base of the last and biggest "little window." The impressive 50-feet span creates a cantilevered bridge on the 150-feet-high main mesa edge. The arch opens toward an equally high, thumb shaped tower at the lava's edge with an engaging petroglyph panel incised into its base. Several carefully carved spirals decorate the smooth rock face and a line of waddling ducks suggests wetter times, although large ponds still persist, hidden in the flows jagged interior.
I like to climb to the top of the arch, where fallen walls and pottery shards mark the location of a 10-room Ansazi pueblo, letting me know I'm not the first to marvel the view toward the Zuni Mountains.
I've watched from here two ravens riding thermal currents as they lazily circle the thumb. I usually find something new and mysterious on my Las Ventanitas hikes. On one unforgettable hike, this spot became enveloped in a slow moving cloud ignited by sunlight into a swirling prism of iridescent, airborne colors. Perhaps I had found the proverbial rainbow's end. I may have dreamt it all, but then so did my two hiking companions.

Michael Richie is a tireless explorer of New Mexico badlands. See more proof by visiting his Web site phototreknm.com.