El Malpais National Monument

El Malpais National Monument is a National Monument located in western New Mexico, in the Southwestern United States

The name El Malpais was coined by the first Spanish explorers from the Spanish term Malpaís, meaning badlands, due to the extremely barren and dramatic volcanic field that covers much of the park’s area.

The lava flows, cinder cones, and other volcanic features of El Malpais are part of the Zuni-Bandera volcanic field, the second largest volcanic field in the Basin and Range Province.

There are two three main roads that surround the park, NM 117 on the east side, NM 53 on the North side that also gives access to El Morro National Monument, and NM 42 connecting NM 53 and NM 117. Many areas are wilderness areas and prohibited to be explored by motorized vehicles and are only accessible by foot.

On NM 117 our first stop was at Sandstone Bluffs. As the name suggests, it is a sandstone rock formation that overlooks the valley and mountains around it.

Mount Taylor snow caped can be seen from there.

Another interesting stop is at La Ventana Natural Arch.

We also hiked the Lava Falls close to the intersection of NM 117 and NM 53

On NM 53 there are two interesting points that we did not visit due to our schedule. They are El Calderon and the privately owned Ice Cave and Bandera Volcano. We will leave this for another time when we visit El Morro National Monument.