Hiking the El Malpais Narrows Rim Trail 10/12/2018

Kathleen chose The Narrows Rim Trail in El Malpais National Monument for her hike.  The trail leads to the top  of a sandstone bluff with beautiful views of the lava flow,  Mt Taylor and the Zuni Mountains. The 8-mile round trip trail is  a mostly level sandy terrain with some rocky sections, but no lava.  The total elevation gain was 585 ft. with a maximum elevation of 7528 ft. The plan was to hike up to the top of the bluff and have lunch at the turn around point which overlooked La Ventana, an alcove natural arch. La Ventana is 80 feet high and  has a span of 165 ft, it's the second largest arch in NM. 

On the way to the trailhead we pulled over to get our first glimpse of La Ventana

The area was banked with many Sandstone bluffs

On the middle right side of this map you can see the location of the natural arch as well as "the Narrows" which is approximately where we started our hike

Heading out at The Narrows picnic area

We were happy to see so many wildflowers

Trailhead

The three Amigos, from the right: our leader, Kathleen, Missy and back behind the camera, Rose (except during the selfie where I am in front of the camera)

There were a lot of opportunities to take pictures

This was the most real climbing we did, the rest was pretty gradual

Here is a flower none of us ever saw before!

I have seen this before but have no idea what it is, but it is a pretty Fall color

Since we are not in the Sandia Mountains...I won't be identifying the wild flowers

The trail was well marked by a lot of cairns so the trail was easy to follow

There were many great views

Kathleen pausing to enjoy the views

Because of the recent rains we saw plenty of animal footprints in the sandy dirt

We saw some petroglyphs on the side of the bluff.  Can you find them? 

Here is a close up of the petroglyphs 

Views at the top of the bluff

Very interesting layers of various types of deposits

We had a great time hiking as the conversations on the trail were quite diverse

Just leaves but so symmetrical

We saw various examples of the presence of animals

 

 

Our bluff marked the end of the lava flows in this area.  From the top we could see the massive lava deposits 

Like i said there were many cairns...all unique in their own way

Some of the trail was very sandy---where's the beach?

 

Another footprint of what seems like an animal I do not want to meet personally

 

This might be deer, elk etc

Some animal who likes to use the same spot to deposit his lunch

A very small flower, the point of my hiking stick shows the size comparison

Another one of those unknown red flowers, but this one is variegated with white 

 

Mount Taylor in the distance with lava flows in the foreground 

 

Reaching our destination: La Ventana Overlook

The views at our lunch spot were awesome 

Missy

Kathleen and Rose

Zooming in at what looked like caves across the valley in another bluff

After lunch I began to meander around to take some pictures

Zooming in on Missy and Kathleen 

Well I came back from my photo ops Kathleen had dessert waiting for us

MMM, I reach for my chocolate

Eating the chocolate you all missed by not hiking with us...it was soooo good!

A not-too-well-made metate and mano

I got a picture of the only animal we saw on the hike

Although we did see a lot of evidence of the wildlife (deer/elk)

These were quite large and deep footprints, why I keep saying elk

Another view from the top

Notice that these rocks don't look naturally placed

Some time ago some natives probably built this structure

Interesting I see a face here...

A glimpse of our starting point The Narrows picnic area

At the start of the hike we forgot to look for the cave..so we found it at the end

I was brave (or stupid) enough to go inside

Well someone lives here!

Some moisture as well

Getting a shot of the ceiling

Sorry so many Hoofers were unable to come on this hike.  It was nice to have somewhere else to hike and so different from what we normally see.