Howdy once more my dear readers! OK, so it's been a Looooong time coming but here is the next installment of the New Mexico Trip I took back in August! A number of personal and professional obligations severely cramped my style in trying to get all of this stuff out to you, but now things are on a more even keel. So, without further delay here is day three!
After a fun day of Ice Caves and being accosted by strangers for money after an amazing meal and a stop to listen to a mariachi group, we begin our day again in the KOA Campground in our new cabin just outside of old Santa Fe.
Our plans for the day included hitting the Kashe-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, catching some sweet seat time in a valley followed by winding mountain roads with a quick zip through Los Alamos and then back to Santa Fe!
Today's installment will focus on our time in the Kashe-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument.
Situated on the Pajarito Plateau in North-central New Mexico, the Tent Rocks National Monument provides visitors what has been referred to as laboratory for geologic processes.
Having been formed by volcanic eruptions millions of years ago leaving deposits of pumice, ash and tuff. following volcanic eruptions in the region ejected massive boulders which impacted the natural process of erosion resulting in these cone like structures known as hoodoos that have come to be known as the tent rocks due to their similarity in shape to tipi tents. In a number of instances the boulders at the tops of these hoodoo formations have since fallen away and no longer offer any sort of protection to the rock beneath and the result is the tent rocks!
So now that we're all up to speed, I'll continue. The trek up to the top in of itself wasn't so bad, We had shed some of our riding clothes to help beat the heat, but there was no way I was leaving my Schott Perfecto down on the bike since there wasn't anywhere on the bike that it could be stowed to prevent thievery so I kept it on until we reached the top and started back down at which point it got slung over my shoulder.
The slot canyon itself was truly an amazing experience. the visible layers in the sediment created and the scraggly plants growing up between cracks in the rock and gaps in boulders was fascinating both from a science and natural wonders perspective as well as from a visual perspective. One of the coolest things was a tree whose major roots were exposed due to erosion and how it was forced to grow in the environment.
As you can see from the two photos of Matt and I kneeling in front of the exposed root system, things that grow in the desert have a tendency to look rather gnarly! Awesome, I just got to use the word "gnarly" in a sentence. Hehehe :-)
There were a fair amount of people visiting the monument that day while we were there, more than I expected really and our snapping photos of this root system apparently sparked a lot of other people's minds and we saw a few folks doing similar such photographic activities at the tree. As we progressed further the slot canyon walls began to close in a little tighter and we noticed that we were definitely starting to go up in altitude. Not that the air was getting thinner mind you we just started to be able to to notice more and more that we were going up.
Other points of interest that we encountered included a tree growing sideways out of the rock face of one of the slot canyon's walls, varying striations in the rock formations, the sheer volume of foreign visitors and some sort of performance art group that was doing some sort of creative... something. We aren't entirely sure about what one half of the group was doing because we didn't see them until we were heading back down and out of the tour and by then it was the entire group and they were all discussing where they were going and what they were doing now that they were done with that location. the part of the group that we DID encounter on our way up was pretty interesting as they had occupied a wide chamber in the slot canyon that was very shaded and much cooler than the rest of the. They were taking photos and working with music and lyrics. Matt and I ended up in a number of general photos taken by the group as we sat and talked with them about their project. Interesting lot that bunch. a few were from California and three of them were from Guatemala. Very interesting indeed.
As we reached the top of our hike up, we found ourselves standing upon an outcropping that jutted out into the canyon and provided us with an outstanding view of not only the slot canyon we had just walked through but also the surrounding areas. I am pretty certain that the visual range the could be viewed would be measured in miles. I'm not sure how many miles, but it was definitely done in miles.
Matt and I made our way out to the end of the outcropping to snap our photos like everyone else who visits a place like that does and even had some fun with it.
Matt and I are a couple of silly dudes when we get together so sometimes, we come up with some rather ridiculous things to do or talk about or what have you. Matt, immediately walked over to a section of the outcropping and said "Dude, lets get a picture.. of this!" and he dropped down behind a weathered section of stone and I positioned myself strategically so I could snap the image that I immediately knew he was going after. It turned out quite funny and we had a good guffaw about it all. It was right after that that we noticed that a polite young woman had been out with us on the narrow strip of land. She laughed at our antics as well. We said polite hellos and exchanged the usual casual "folks who randomly meet out on the road" type dialog and introductions. She introduced herself as Lilly. She then asked me if I could take a picture of her with her camera and I gregariously agreed. I snapped several shots of her in several different yet similar poses and I convinced her to include several with silly expressions because I was absolutely positive that those were mandatory things to do though admittedly I had no references or documents to back up my statements. She then offered to snag a few of Matt and I and we happily accepted. After several photos being taken in various variations
of the exact same pose a couple of us seated and an absolutely ridiculous series of three way selfies in which all three of us held out our respective cell phones while all standing in a group and took selfies. The result was the image you see of us all standing together or some variation there of. Once we had finished up our photos and our thanks yous and shaking of hands, we all headed back down the trail we had just come up. We ended up leaving Lilly the Polite Photographer in our dust as we proceeded down the trail with as much haste as was safely possible in order to get to our motorcycles and finish out the rest of the day's drive.
We still had a decent amount of ground to cover before making it back to our cabin at the KOA campground just outside of Santa Fe for the night especially if we wanted to make it back in time to enjoy some of the evening life in and around Old Town Santa Fe.
We hopped on our bikes and we headed back out on the road to finish the day's journey. We still had Taos, the roads headed into Los Alamos and the ride back to Santa Fe which will all be covered in the next installment of the trip: "Day Three Part II: Taos, The Road to Los Alamos and a Better View of Old Town Santa Fe." or something similar to that. Til then, happy motoring and keep the shiny side up!
After a fun day of Ice Caves and being accosted by strangers for money after an amazing meal and a stop to listen to a mariachi group, we begin our day again in the KOA Campground in our new cabin just outside of old Santa Fe.
Our plans for the day included hitting the Kashe-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, catching some sweet seat time in a valley followed by winding mountain roads with a quick zip through Los Alamos and then back to Santa Fe!
Today's installment will focus on our time in the Kashe-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument.
Situated on the Pajarito Plateau in North-central New Mexico, the Tent Rocks National Monument provides visitors what has been referred to as laboratory for geologic processes.
Having been formed by volcanic eruptions millions of years ago leaving deposits of pumice, ash and tuff. following volcanic eruptions in the region ejected massive boulders which impacted the natural process of erosion resulting in these cone like structures known as hoodoos that have come to be known as the tent rocks due to their similarity in shape to tipi tents. In a number of instances the boulders at the tops of these hoodoo formations have since fallen away and no longer offer any sort of protection to the rock beneath and the result is the tent rocks!
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| Here we have a cluster of hoodoo. Hoodoo? You do... ok I'll just stop with that joke... |
To get to where you could really appreciate the structures we had to make our way through a slot canyon and then up to the top of the plataeu.
If you're not sure what a slot canyon is, let me give you a popular and well recognized point of reference. I'm sure that all of you out in readerland are familiar with "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." Do you remember when Indy, his dad and Marcus Brody had to ride on horseback to try to get to that temple carved in the side of a cliff wall to try and get there before the Nazis got there? Got that in your head now? That's a slot canyon of sorts. |
| We started down here... |
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| ...and had to go through stuff like this... |
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| ...so we could make it up to here. |
So now that we're all up to speed, I'll continue. The trek up to the top in of itself wasn't so bad, We had shed some of our riding clothes to help beat the heat, but there was no way I was leaving my Schott Perfecto down on the bike since there wasn't anywhere on the bike that it could be stowed to prevent thievery so I kept it on until we reached the top and started back down at which point it got slung over my shoulder.
The slot canyon itself was truly an amazing experience. the visible layers in the sediment created and the scraggly plants growing up between cracks in the rock and gaps in boulders was fascinating both from a science and natural wonders perspective as well as from a visual perspective. One of the coolest things was a tree whose major roots were exposed due to erosion and how it was forced to grow in the environment.
As you can see from the two photos of Matt and I kneeling in front of the exposed root system, things that grow in the desert have a tendency to look rather gnarly! Awesome, I just got to use the word "gnarly" in a sentence. Hehehe :-) |
| Folks from the performing arts group. Definitely an interesting crew. |
Other points of interest that we encountered included a tree growing sideways out of the rock face of one of the slot canyon's walls, varying striations in the rock formations, the sheer volume of foreign visitors and some sort of performance art group that was doing some sort of creative... something. We aren't entirely sure about what one half of the group was doing because we didn't see them until we were heading back down and out of the tour and by then it was the entire group and they were all discussing where they were going and what they were doing now that they were done with that location. the part of the group that we DID encounter on our way up was pretty interesting as they had occupied a wide chamber in the slot canyon that was very shaded and much cooler than the rest of the. They were taking photos and working with music and lyrics. Matt and I ended up in a number of general photos taken by the group as we sat and talked with them about their project. Interesting lot that bunch. a few were from California and three of them were from Guatemala. Very interesting indeed.
As we reached the top of our hike up, we found ourselves standing upon an outcropping that jutted out into the canyon and provided us with an outstanding view of not only the slot canyon we had just walked through but also the surrounding areas. I am pretty certain that the visual range the could be viewed would be measured in miles. I'm not sure how many miles, but it was definitely done in miles.
Matt and I made our way out to the end of the outcropping to snap our photos like everyone else who visits a place like that does and even had some fun with it.
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| Matt "clinging for dear life" Shoulda got in on this one with him. |
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| Another really spiffy view from our perch atop the outcropping. |
We still had a decent amount of ground to cover before making it back to our cabin at the KOA campground just outside of Santa Fe for the night especially if we wanted to make it back in time to enjoy some of the evening life in and around Old Town Santa Fe.
 |
| Matt, myself and Lilly the Polite Photographer |
We hopped on our bikes and we headed back out on the road to finish the day's journey. We still had Taos, the roads headed into Los Alamos and the ride back to Santa Fe which will all be covered in the next installment of the trip: "Day Three Part II: Taos, The Road to Los Alamos and a Better View of Old Town Santa Fe." or something similar to that. Til then, happy motoring and keep the shiny side up!
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| Matt and I sitting on some rocks for a photo being snapped by the ever courteous Lilly the Polite Photographer |
