Kasha Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument

Before we left Santa Fe, we visited San Miguel Mission, a simple adobe structure, built in the early 17th century by the Tlaxcalan Indians of Mexico, who came to New Mexico ass servants of the Spanish. It claims to be the oldest church still in use in the U.S. Badly damaged in the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, the structure was restored and enlarged in 1710. Then we drove out to Kasha Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, which is located 45 minutes south of Santa Fe near Cochiti Pueblo. As you can see, it is a fascinating landscape. The cone-shaped tent rock formations are the products of volcanic eruptions that occurred 6 to 7 million years ago and left pumice, ash and tuff deposits over 1,000 feet thick. Precariously perched on many of the tapering hoodoos are boulder caps that protect the softer pumice and tuff below. Some tents have lost their hard, resistant caprocks and are disintegrating. While fairly uniform in shape, the tent rock formations vary in height from a few feet to 90 feet. In the surrounding cliffs, as the result of uniform layering of volcanic material, bands of gray are interspersed with beige and pink-colored rock . The Canyon trail takes you through a narrow slot canyon, up 630-ft to the mesa top for excellent views of the Sangre de Cristo, Jemez, Sandia mountains and the Rio Grande Valley. It was a great hike.
Then it was time to head south down to Alamogordo, to see our son Philip, who is in the Airforce down there. We arrived early evening, and having checked into the hotel we went to pick Philip up, and he took us to his favorite Mexican restaurant in the area - actually back quite a number of miles along the route we had come in on!

One year ago: Butterfly on daisies