Lava, Cliffs, & Mountains - a day with Uncle Keith

After feasting upon all that Mexican food at El Pinto, Kate and I were in need of a lot of walking. We woke up early Thursday morning and went to Petroglyph National Monument, just a few miles outside of Albuquerque. Petroglyphs are rock carvings (as opposed to rock paintings) in basalt (otherwise known as lava). The monument has over 20,000 of these. Some are really old – maybe as old as 2000 years—but most were probably made around 400-700 years ago. Others are sadly as recent as a few weeks ago because some idiot like STEVE has to proclaim his love for IRENE by carving it into the rocks. Irene, if you are reading this, Steve is a hoser.

We did a bit of a hit and run because we knew we were in for a big day with Kate’s Uncle Keith in Grants, New Mexico, about an hour’s drive from ABQ. Uncle Keith retired early and enthusiastically to this area a few years ago and has been happily exploring it ever since. We pulled into this funny little town and right into Uncle Keith’s driveway. His house is spectacular, with a view of several distinct mesas of which Keith knew the names and histories, and Mt. Taylor just behind his house. Uncle Keith has an amazing relationship with “Taylor” and if you aren’t listening closely you may think he’s discussing an old friend when he mentions the mountain.

Uncle Keith gave us a tour of his rock garden outside and his workshop where he creates rustic furniture. He also showed us the beautiful rocks he’s gathered in New Mexico and on geology trips he’s taken. We discovered we were his first house guests in his new house, so we got the super-royal treatment and tour.

We packed a lunch together and we were off. Our first stop was the Acoma Pueblo reservation, which usually gives tours of its village and old Spanish church, but it was closing for religious ceremonies (summer dances) and those are not open to us Anglos. It was a cool drive up to the Pueblo even if we couldn’t get in and get a tour.

Our next stop was to the sandstone bluffs inside the El Malpais (he pronounced it Mal-pie-ees) National Monument. We explored for a bit and ate lunch. We were particularly surprised to see tadpoles in a puddle up on the top of these sandstone cliffs. Apparently they can hang out in egg form for up to 3-5 years waiting for a good rain to hatch in. As a wildlife biology major in college, of course I knew that fact. It was one of the many I have forgotten since graduating.

From the top of the bluffs, you can see miles and miles fields of black cooled lava, the Malpais (which means “the bad lands”). Keith really wanted us to get a sense of it from the ground and see just how “tortured” it was. You could see how the lava flowed and rolled over the ground, and layers where other lava and ash fell on top of that, eruption after eruption. It reminded me of something from a Tolkien book. This whole area had volcanic activity as recently as 2,000 years ago, with dozens of volcanoes spewing ash and lava all over the place. An 8-mile trail runs across the Malpais, marked only by small cairns; it’s called the Acoma-Zuni trail because it connects the Acoma and Zuni pueblos. Apparently people die out here because the cairns aren’t easy to spot and are easy to lose sight of. Before we had time to get lost or eaten by a mountain lion, a storm began to brew and we had to turn back (this seems to be happening to us a lot on this trip!). We got back to Keith’s trusty pickup truck just in time as the sky opened up and big thick licks of lightning began to hit in the distance. Here are a few pics:

Kate makes a mustard 'sun' petroglyph

From the cliffs

Uncle Keith & Kate

You can see just how tortured the land really is. That's lava, folks.

While we were waiting for the storm to pass, we drove to the Narrows, and even saw a few hoodoos along the way. The Narrows is a really cool road with 500-foot sandstone cliffs on one side, and lava fields on the other. As Uncle Keith said, “Land of Enchantment indeed!”

After the rain passed we went to La Ventana Arch, which is the second biggest natural arch in New Mexico, but remains the largest arch I have ever seen in New Mexico. We walked to the base to really get a perspective of just how huge it is. In looking at how the erosion over time created the arch, there was something Uncle Keith said that particularly resonated with me. He commented on how the earth just wants to make things smooth. All the erosion, eruptions, wind, water, and time are all working to make the earth smooth. That struck me because some things I consider to be the mental or emotional equivalent of erosion, eruption, and other phenomena may not be working against me the way I think, but might just be making me smoother in my thinking, my reactions, and general way of being.




After all that walking around, we decided to head back to Grants to grill some steaks. Driving through Grants this second time brought the funky town to life. Uncle Keith’s enthusiasm for his new hometown and home state is 100% contagious. He talked about the Quad – an international race that involves running, biking, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing up and down Mt. Taylor; the geology and names of each mesa; and the history of the town. Grants was definitely a boom-and-bust town that went through 3 boom cycles – first with the railroad, second with mining, and third with uranium. During the Cold War, miners who worked in the uranium mines knew that they were dealing with poison, but the fact was we needed that to make bombs, so the US government paid them handsomely to go in there and mine that uranium unprotected. Apparently there are bumper stickers around that say Cold War Patriot – those are the guys who went in and did that job. And who all are really really sick now. An amazing piece of history I never would have known. There is a mining museum in grants, as well as an old diner called The Uranium Café.

Dinner was great, and we heard all sorts of hilarious stories about Uncle Keith’s cowboy days (he was a REAL cowboy if you didn’t already know). We also heard a number of more recent stories about his local explorations that frequently ended with him and his lady-friend either (a) trespassing somewhere they shouldn’t; (b) getting lost and barely making it out before [a big storm/running out of gas/pitch dark]; or (c) acting like a ‘dumb, friendly lost guy’ in order to either get out of a pinch (see situation A) or to get some new pieces of info about the area.

Now that is one heck of a drill bit.

Finally we drove up almost to the peak of Mt. Taylor. Taylor was an active volcano that blew and rebuilt itself several times thousands of years ago. On the way, we passed through gorgeous forest – including a mature grove of aspen that just took your breath away. We went to one of the summits of Mt. Taylor and watched the sun slowly set over the mesas in the distance. We stayed up there quite awhile just soaking it in, but eventually had to descend.

Magnificent Sunset

Before we left Uncle Keith, he made sure we picked out a rock or two from his vast and varied collection. “Everyone should have a rock,” he said. Kate picked out a fossilized seashell that he found on top of a local mesa (because much of this area was at one time underwater, part of an inland sea!) and I chose a small red rock that has wood-like grains and a neat energy about it. Best of all, it was smooth.