El Malpais-Lava Tubes Trail Hike – 08/15/2019 - Hiking in New Mexico (NMHiking.com)

With a grandson coming to visit, we thought we might explore the Lava Tubes in the El Malpais National Monument. To check it out in advance, we made it a day-trip.

The Drive In

First stop was the Visitors Center located just off I-40 on NM-53 in Grants. We obtained vital information for our visit including maps and brochures as well as an information sheet for each cave. And … to get your Visitors Permit for the Tubes along with:

A briefing on protocols for visiting the Tubes
Advisories such as:
1. –don’t drive into the Big Tubes unless the road is -dry-,
2. –call a friend before going in a cave and call them again when exiting the cave, and
3. –wear clothing (shoes especially), a helmet, gloves, and even kneepads for protection from from the sharp lava.

[Note: Some references refer to the “El Malpais (NPS) Information Center”, 20 miles from from the Visitors Center on NM 53, as a place to get the permits. We were told this location is permanently closed.]

So, off we went, 24 miles to our first stop, the El Calderon Area and its handful of smaller caves. The parking lot is just a very short drive off of NM 53, then short and easy walks from there to the caves.

The Hikes

El Malpais-Big Lava Tubes Hike.Pat.2019-08-15

Descending down into the Junction Cave.

Visiting Junction Cave, the one closest to the parking lot, we descended maybe 20′ on large rocks that are strewn about. The cave is shallow, maybe 30′-40′ across in one direction; it must go further in the other direction but a fence blocks access. On Google Earth and the brochure, there are clearly more caves to see here, but our focus was to visit the Large Tubes. Note: Though the fence blocks access, the opening in Junction Cave is so small as to require crawling; this example lines up with the description provided at the Visitors Center about the other caves in El Caldron and … the advice to bring kneepads.

Getting to the Big Tubes, one proceeds 6 miles further on NM 53, then turn left onto Cibola County 42, a gravel road, for 4.5 miles. Then it’s a left turn onto a dirt road for another 4.5 miles to the parking lot for the Big Tubes Area. [Note: The “road” for this final 4.5 miles is not maintained, is mostly clay, and should -not- be used if it is the least bit wet, or even if there has been any rain in the past 2 days.]

On the ‘lava trail’, following the rock cairns.

The parking area is at the edge of the lava flows; entering the trail we found ourselves on a very rocky/lava surface – makes walking tough. The trail is marked with rockpile cairns every 50′ or so; without them we would not have been able to find our way. There are many features in the area: the 3 caves noted in the brochures plus lava bridges, trenches where the roof of tubes have collapsed, and simply the tortuous terrain.

The day was hot, especially on the lava flows, with no shade to speak of. We decided to visit the Big Skylight Cave first. Approaching the cave we were surprised to find the trench to be quite deep, and in the bottom – very large rocks. ‘Tho not intending to go into the cave that day, we could not find a path for descending into the trench that appeared to be navigable, at least not for us. Maybe with someone as a guide?

Arching over the trench was a lava bridge from which we followed the trail to the Four Windows Cave. Like Big Skylight, access to Four Windows required descending into a deep trench; we did identify a route that we might manage, but only on a day when we were fresh for the experience (i.e., not so hot). Experiencing some disappointment, probably induced as much by the strange terrain, etc., we decided this was not a place to go during our grandson’s visit. Maybe in cooler weather?

Statistics

Total Distance: 1.27 miles
Elevation: start 7,618 ft, maximum 7,650 ft, minimum 7,615 ft
Gross gain: 32 ft. Aggregate ascending 171 ft, descending 173 ft
Maximum slope: 35% ascending, 26% descending, 4.2% average
Duration: 1:17