Hiking Albuquerque's Volcanoes 4/7/2017

Judy chose a perfect day to hike the West Mesa in Albuquerque where Albuquerque's five volcanoes are located.  The three largest volcanoes are known as "The Three Sisters" the first is "JA", next comes "Black" and the third is "Vulcan" (also called "J" volcano for the large "J" that was painted on the east side of the volcano.  Interesting note, our own Kathleen, in 1969, was one of the students from St. Joseph's on the Rio Grande who would come every spring to repaint the "J" [for Joseph] on the volcano.)  Vulcan is the largest of the cinder cones and is a "spatter" cone which is formed by fiery fountains of lava.  Spatter forms when blobs of lava are emitted from a vent.  The blobs cool as they fly through the air and the partially molten blobs land on the side of the cone and weld together to form a hard crust..  The base of Vulcan is made of cinder and the crater contains a lava dome.  The last two of the five major volcanoes are "Bond" and "Butte".  There are at least 10 other small volcanos and spatter cones that have been identified on the West Mesa's volcanic field.  There were six lava flows. The first two travelled the furthest creating the lava-covered plateau of the West Mesa of Albuquerque.  The latter eruptions formed the 5 larger volcanic cones.  These volcanoes were active 170,000 to 70,000 years ago.

The Hoofers: Judi, Karen and Lynda, Jane, Pat, Bridget, Jean, Julianne, Sally, Barb, Meagan, Helene, Judy (our leader), Kathleen...

...and Rose

Curly Dock

Heading out "JA" is in the distance

JA, the first volcano, we could no longer climb up to see it as the trail was closed for revegetation (I wonder if that will be a permanent.) 

Heading towards Black which we were not allowed to climb either :(

This whole area was covered with Curly Dock

Only saw one Spectacle Pod

It gets its name from the "spectacle"-shaped pods along the stem

Sandia Mountains in the distance

 Sierra Blanca Bladderpod

Heading towards the largest cone, "Vulcan"

Yellow Indian Parsley or Chimaya

Vulcan 

You can still make out the "J" on Vulcan

A closer picture of the fading "J"

The colorful edge of a collapse cone 

Looking down into the collapsed cone

Globemallow 

Yellow Mustard

Beautiful green Snakeweed

Horned Lizard 

Affectionately known as Horny Toads (photo permission granted by Mr. H. Toad)

 

More Snakeweed freshly growing from last year's plants

 Finally we reach "Bond" the 4th volcano where there is a huge cave to explore

A subgroup of Hoofers climb up to check it out

I go in as far as I can to capture a picture of its depth and also the beautiful colors of the rocks

Great time to take another group picture of those who made the climb: Kathleen, Lynda, Meagan, Judi, Helene, Karen, Sally, Jane, Judy...

and Rose!

Taking a picture of the four who decided not to make the climb 

I hurried down to take a picture of the Hoofers coming down from the cave

When I told Bridget and Jean that the cave was cleaned out of debris they decided to go up and check it out

This plane kept circling overhead as we hiked the volcanoes--no doubt checking us beautifully fit babes out!

The top of the last of the largest volcanoes, "Butte"

There use to be a very large peace sign at the top, so Meagan and I made a small one  

Having lunch: Bridget, Meagan, Helene, and Barb...also known as BLUE  woMAN GROUP

Lynda, Kathleen, Sally and Karen

Judi, Judy and Jean AKA "The J's"

C'est Moi

Various views of volcanos

The Sandia Mountains with the sprawling metropolis of Albuquerque

One of the stones of our peace sign was kicked and underneath a shell casing was found

Meagan who is so into karma insisted I take a picture...I placed the shell case on top of a rock so that it was easier to see

Mount Taylor still topped with snow

Heading back to the cars

My over the shoulder shot 

I know I have lots of pictures of the Curly Dock, but they were so beautiful 

A selfie while hiking

Kathleen saw a perfectly square something in the distance and wanted to know what it was...

Zooming in from two different angles is looked like a square rock 

Making the long climb back up Vulcan

And we still had a long way to go

The first volcano finally in sight: "JA"

Zooming in on Barb who was way ahead of the group she had a mission and was determined to accomplish it

Going back into my archives of pictures I thought I would add a few pictures of past hikes: here is the original peace sign on "Butte"

Here is the Spoon Shrine on Butte with the Colored tiles

 Closeup of some more of the tiles

This is the remains of a stone house that my husband and I hiked to after "Butte"  there was even a small kiva fireplace

And the remains of a coyote after the "Roadrunner" had its way with it

 Another great hike by the Hoofers which is why we are called Happy!!

:)