Tent Rocks National Memorial

 We found another national park that we had never heard of--Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks.  But now we are great fans!  Even though it was cloudy with chances of rain, we made the 38 mile trip through area Indian Reservations this afternoon to get to Tent Rocks.  

We have to say that this is an instant gratification national monument--as soon as you arrive you see awesome teepee-like rock structures that are amazing in size and color!

The swirls of color in the canyon walls are the products of volcanic eruptions that left pumice, ash, and tuff deposits.  Because of the layering of this different volcanic material, there are bands of different colors in the canyons.

It was so much fun hiking through the canyon that continued to get narrower and narrower until it formed a tight slot canyon!








There is a 1.7-mile "Cave Loop hike" that is interesting, but the best formations are found in the adjoining "Slot Canyon Trail".

We made our way through the winding slot canyon with its swirling stripes. We knew that we had found another of God's wonders!

Once through the narrowest slot, the canyon again opens up into huge tent formations that are up to 90 feet tall.  

We found that most of these tent rocks used to have a hard caprock on top that resisted the effects of erosion.  Denisa is standing under a smaller tent rock with the caprock still in place.


But throughout the hike we found most tents without their cap, or some with tiny caps fashionably askew.

The area was so unusual to look at, but at the same time majestic in size!  We kept saying, "This is so cool!"  Perhaps the reason we had never heard of this little park is because it is relatively new. It was designated as a national park in 2001.

Through out the canyon there was a sprinkling of trees.  Mark has always been a tree climber.  Wherever we are hiking, he'll pick a tree and announce, "I could climb that tree!"  Most of the time Denisa can convince him that it is not in the best interest of time (or health insurance) to climb that huge tree.  But today Mark climbed not this tree trunk, but the tree root.










The Slot Canyon Trail winds around the canyon, and then there is a steep section that takes you to the top.  Half-way to the top, you start to see the pointy tops of the tent rocks.

But the very best view of all is when we climbed to the top of the 630 foot canyon wall, and could even see the grassy top of the next canyon wall.  It's hard to capture that view in a picture, but it was awesome looking down on those tall canyon walls, and the tents below.

This was a fast view, however, because the impending storms that had been threatening all afternoon, let loose in a violent gale of winds.  We were the only people on the narrow ridge of the canyon wall when the rain came, complete with the wind gusts of the storm front.  It was raining hard sideways, and we were a long ways from any shelter!  Denisa started running for cover down the path that led back into the canyon, while Mark attempted to take some pictures from the top.

In the national park brochure, the pictures of the tent rocks and the canyons look white.  In fact the full name of the park "Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks" was named  because it means "white cliffs" in the traditional Keresan language.  We were treated to darker lines and more stunning colors in the canyon today because of the moisture of the rain soaking into the rocks.  It was beautiful even in the rain!

We had on rain coats, so we ran back down the steepest part of the trail to find a little protection under a tree.  We waited out the rain, and then started our descent back to the parking lot.  We were still exclaiming about the beauty of this canyon.  We knew we must return on a blue sky day, because those white tent rocks against a blue sky would be amazing.


By the time we had walked half way through the canyon, the skies cleared and we saw glimpses of blue sky on the horizon.  We really felt like we hadn't finished this hike since we had to make such a speedy retreat from the summit.  So right then, we decided today would be a great time to see this canyon for a second time.  We turned right around and started the trip to the top again.

There might not be a lot of blue sky showing, but we did get a kinder sky picture from the top of our favorite part of the canyon on our second trip to the top.

We also had the time to look down into the adjacent canyons to see the rock formations that we hadn't seen before because of the rain.  This second canyon was wider, but still beautiful!

We also had the opportunity to talk to several other hikers that had waited out the rain to get to the top.  We always enjoy meeting new people, and we usually share common interests with fellow hikers.  This group was from Seattle, and they made the trip to Santa Fe to participate in a 50-mile bicycle race tomorrow.  This was their day off from bike training, so they opted for this hike.  It's a small world, as he was raised in Shawnee, Oklahoma, and graduated from OU.  We must have visited too long, because another storm front  started to build.  We took the last picture of the dramatic sky, before we made another hasty retreat from the canyon ledge.

We didn't stop for many pictures this time through the canyon, as we were seeing most of it for the fourth time today.  But there were some interesting shadows developing in the tightest curves of the slot canyon.

It was truly one of God's wonders to see the swirling path that the water had taken to carve this slot.















We were hurrying back to the parking lot to beat the next rain storm.  But we were still a half mile away when it hit.  We knew that there was a cave on the cave loop, so we ran there as fast as we could, thinking that it would be a great place to wait out the storm.


The park brochure never mentioned that the entrance to the cave was eight feet off the ground!  Denisa couldn't climb up that slick wet rock into the cave entrance, even with a boost from Mark!  So we found a little shelter in the canyon wall, and got wet for the second time today!

It's always an adventure, even when the weather doesn't cooperate with our plans.  And we feel like we've been blessed to get to wander through another of God's wonders (twice)!