Bisti/El Malpais Trip

I finally was able to get away last week with my brother and traveled down to New Mexico for a week of hiking and camping. We roamed around Bisti Wilderness for about 4 days and then explored some lava tubes in El Malpais National Monument for a couple more. The weather was a little bit iffy at times with 45 mph winds and higher gusts on Monday that created a few thousand foot high dust cloud that totally obscured the sun at sunset and then on Friday more 45 mph winds and rain that lasted about 8 hours (that was a fun night to spend in a tent). This first shot was at the Cracked Eggs on the evening of the winds and rain, you can see the lighter rain clouds coming in from the right.

#2 Bisti Badlands

#3 Bisti Petrified Tree. This petrified tree is about 40 feet long.

#4 Lava Tube, El Malpais National Monument. We were inside a pitch dark lava tube and as we hiked through a curved section we could see a light ahead. The top of the tube had partially collapsed and a small 3-4 foot diameter hole let in light. This tube is probably about 35 feet high at the skylight and maybe 20 feet elsewhere.

#5 Light Beam

Sweet set Scott! You don't see many images from El Malpais, but these two are good.

Great set indeed ... especially like the b/w image.

Love the sky in the first one and the lave tubes are really cool. Almost like a set from the Lord of the Rings.

always love seeing Bisti shots and I love the dark skies. Thanks for the lava tube shots, nice management of the light.

The petrified tree landscape is my favorite. Thanks for sharing.

- Dan.

Nice set Scott-the lava tubes are great. I've heard it can get pretty cold down in those tubes, but at least you're out of the wind! I'm curious if there's water/ice on the ground on the last one under the hole that's reflecting on the RH wall? Either way, cool shots!

Great light beams in those lava tubes.

Bisti is always "fun" in the rain. I hope your boots didn't get too heavy.

Jared, It does get cold down there, colder than most caves, down into the 30's in fact. There was ice and snow just inside the cave entrances in a couple places. There wasn't any water in the last shot, the light beam was hitting the ground right there and reflecting light on the walls, it was really neat effect.

Bill, the boots got very heavy, very quickly but the ground dries up really fast even after hours of rain.

I absolutely love #2! The juxtaposition between the banding in the earth and the erosional channels is fascinating. The light beam is very nice as well.

Great set of pictures - liked the light beam

Very neat stuff. That is quite a lot of suspended dust there in #1. And I could have been easily convinced that there was a sword in the stone at the end of the light beam in #5.

Great series, I really enjoyed that 2nd and 3rd one.

The last two of the Bisti series and the El Malpais shots are superb!
I never see any images from EM, and these two give me a lot of incentive to visit.

Great series, Scott! You don't post often, but when you do... Wow!

Fanatastic series...I really like #2 and #4...#2 reminds me of elephant skin.

Amazing images! Like that foreground in the first image. Also like that shaft of light in the last image as well.

Cool shots! I've found that bringing brothers on trips is handy. Take yours, for example, standing outside the lava rubes with that spotlight. That's family, man!

I like the beam and lighting in #4.
Bisti is on my short list for this summer when the monsoon clouds arrive. Looks like a dust cloud was about to engulf you in #1

Doug, that was a massive rain cloud/storm that encircled the whole area and finally enveloped us and dumped rain down for about 8 hours.

Very cool stuff, Scott. That 1st Bisti shot makes the formations look like they were made of paper mache! And the lava tube shots, wow, and wow some more, I've got to get down there some day! How long are those tubes? The floor looks rather difficult to walk through, what a maze of boulders!

Always wanted to make it down there. Great shots!

Amazing set of images!

Thanks everybody for your comments.

Don, there are a number of different tubes, this particular one is almost a mile long. In much of the tube the floor is relatively smooth and is relatively easy to walk on, but areas like this where a portion of the roof has collapsed have huge piles of debris. There are some areas where the whole roof has collapsed and one lava tube called the Collapsed Caterpillar has almost entirely collapsed and is essentially a miles long trench through the landscape.

Todd, you apparently aren't aware that New Mexico is the biggest Alien hotspot in the country, those light beams aren't from spotlights, they are from spaceships!

Those are all just excellent. I especially like #2 and #3!

Awesome series here Scott! I like 1 but especially like the light beam in the lava tube! Looks like some hard ground to navigate inside those things.