A couple of miles west of the small town of Carrizozo in New Mexico is a totally otherworldly place called Malpaís. Malpaís means “wastelands” in Spanish and if it was the Spanish who gave this place its name, it sure was appropriate. The Badlands is a flow of solidified lava that erupted from various vents around Little Black Peak approximately 5,000 years ago. The lava itself is similar to the lava found in Hawaii in that it is dark black basalt. According to the Park Service Information Panel, this lava flow is one of the youngest and best-preserved lava flows in the United States.

The Malpaís is 44 miles long with an average width of 2.5 miles. The flow covers 127 square miles and is between 45 and 165 feet deep. The eruption lasted about 30 years, but it was not a catastrophic eruption, but rather lava flowing from an open vent creating lava tubes, dams, ice caves, and collapsed bubbles. The Malpaís is an interesting place that is home to an amazing diversity of desert plants and provides a home for all sorts of creatures such as coyotes, rabbits, ring-tailed cats, bats, snakes, and lizards.

Even though the terrain is rough enough to shred the best boots in no time, the plants find this spot at 5,000 feet in the high desert a good place to live. Average precipitation is only about 12 inches a year, but because rainwater and snow collect on rocks and run off into crevices, there is a much greater abundance of plant life inside the Malpais than outside. of the. In winter, the black rock absorbs heat from the sun and radiates it away at night, keeping the area slightly warmer than the surrounding desert. In the summer, when it’s 100 degrees outside, in the deep fissures it’s nice and cool and in the lava tubes there can even be ice.

Humans have inhabited the area around the Malpaís for 12,000 years and some of the ancients may have even witnessed lava erupt and flow in a bright red river at night from the slopes of the White Mountains or Pico Carrizo. These people and even the Mescalero Apache later used the many useful desert plants that grew in the area, such as Sotol, Yucca, Agave, Cholla, and Prickly Pear. They wove mats and baskets from yucca fibers, made ropes from sotol leaves, and used sharp black obsidian as spearheads.

There is a great parking area and trailhead at Malpais that provides access to a paved wheelchair accessible trail through the lava that is 38 miles long. I think it’s great that provision has been made, even for a short distance, so that people with disabilities can also enjoy the outdoors. I was thinking that this could be a model for many other places. When the pavement ends, the trail continues a loop ending at the starting point in another 2/3 of a mile. This seems short, but in the heat of summer it’s probably longer than most would want.

I had been fascinated by the stories of this place for years reading Louis L’amour’s books about how the hero “Flint” was hiding in an oasis that no one could find in the center of Malpais, so I had to visit this place. for me. I had that opportunity one weekend when I escaped from duty at Fort Bliss and drove north to get away from that place. The following is an account of an afternoon when I shared the Malpaís with Luna.

I’m sitting by a positively ancient juniper tree in the Malpais lava flow of Lincoln County, New Mexico. I’m watching the sunset paint the cotton western sky in shades of pink and orange. Most people would be looking for an end to their day when the sun goes down, but not me, I’m going to enjoy the wastelands since I have them all to myself. There is a light breeze blowing and I can hear the crickets and all sorts of other LOUD and completely annoying night bugs. I started my hike into the lava around 6pm. There were all kinds of bad plants in the lava and I was pierced several times by Sotol spears and it really hurt.

The stars have now come out and there is a cloud above me in the sky. It is shaped like a fingerprint with the dark blue of the night and the stars behind it. It’s hot here at night because of my Juniper. This gnarly old Juniper was hundreds of years old when Billy the Kid was on the run from Sheriff Pat Garrett and the Mescalero Apache was on the warpath. The lava is very black and thick, piled up in strings and mounds.

I can hear an owl out there in the dark. It was somewhat difficult to negotiate the wastelands. I left the trail and headed west towards the Malpaís. Large folds, depressions, cave-ins and cracks had to be negotiated. Parts of the surface were crumbling piles of fragmented lava; others were solid surfaces of apparently frozen mud. Some of the rope flows were stacked almost vertically and I easily climbed over them and down the other side, all the while grateful for my leather gloves and heavy boots. There were large cracks in solid masses of lava and there were small hidden sandy-bottomed valleys, depressions, or bowls that were surrounded by lava piles over 30 feet on all sides.

I’m sitting here waiting for the moon to rise over Carrizo Mountain. Just before it got dark in the lava, bats of different shapes, sizes, arrangements and colors appeared. I counted four different types of bats. They flew in all random directions out of the dark places as if the swirling leaves were blown by the wind. I wish I could find all those noisy critters and squash them. At least the bats are coming for them. One of the bats was strangely red and looked like a giant butterfly.

The angry looking moon appears to be Sauron’s searching eye looking across Mordor. Thin clouds hovering around Carrizo Mountain are protecting the eye. Now it rises like a great orange lantern through some juniper branches on the horizon. It is completely full and it is an extraordinary spectacle to see that celestial object pilot through the clouds. If it was Halloween it would be perfect with that spooky moon and bats flying too close for comfort.

The moon is like a great spotlight now, casting shadows from every rock, tree, and bush. No flashlights needed tonight. If you’ve ever stood under a pale blue white streetlight late at night, you can relate to the look of the entire desert and sky. I explored several cracks. The deepest one was about 30 feet deep and I had to be very careful descending to its floor, which was tan sand. It’s similar to being in a narrow slot canyon in southern Utah, in that you could touch both sides of the chasm with your arms outstretched.

I heard a coyote somewhere in the night and it sounds like a ghostly Apache war cry. It is a tragedy what our government did to those people on the banks of the Pecos. I’m glad the Mescalero Apaches were allowed to go back to Sierra Blanca and claim the Ruidoso “noisy water” head for themselves. I will never forget how the Big Dipper dipped brilliantly into the sky that looked like a cloud of cotton candy.

Someday, when I’m old and broken, I’ll go back to this one of my favorite places and sit down to visit the old Juniper, its neighbor the Cholla, the crickets, the wind, Carrizo Peak, and my heaven again. Mexico. Cholla casts strange and melancholic shadows on the road. It’s hot and muggy in the breaks when the wind has stopped, but you can smell the rich pine scent of the juniper. I thought about how the snakes manage here, since it looks like the lava would cut them to pieces.

There were hardwood deciduous trees with gray trunks in some of the chasms with years of fallen leaves around their base on the chasm floor. There were red bulbous fruits on the prickly pear and strange, golf ball-sized bright yellow fruits on the cholla. I found a strange plant with fruits as big as pears. Come to find out that these are Yucca bananas and that they were a staple crop for the Indians in the past.

Contemplating the Malpaís in the moonlight, I can imagine old John Chism and his horsemen chasing the rustlers to the edge of the lava and losing them in the ruts. I sat up and wondered if maybe Billy the Kid himself at some point hid in these rocks. I had a good night in the badlands, just me, the moon, an owl, a coyote, and a bunch of bats and bugs. Such a strange place with a certain quality that creates a feeling of its own… especially on a summer night with a full moon.

If you ever visit the Malpaís, make sure you take plenty of water with you. After a few near-death experiences in the desert, my rule of thumb is to estimate how much water you think you’ll need, and then double it. It is campfire in the beginning of winter when collecting firewood. Anyway, a good pair of leather gloves and a sturdy pair of boots are also a must because the sharp basalt will shred ordinary shoes in no time. If you’re foolish enough to walk alone as I often do, tell someone where you’re going and when you expect to return.

El Malpaís is a strange and magical place that can be fun to visit. Just be prepared and avoid disaster. This place isn’t called the Badlands for no reason. It’s tough and unforgiving terrain, but if you’re prepared, you’ll be safe and have fun.