Valley of Fires (The Malpais)

Located about five miles west of Carrizozo, the Valley of Fires Recreation Area is one of the most inhospitable places nature ever built. Extending for two miles wide, twenty miles long up to 160 feet deep is a lava flow from a near by volcanoes that erupted only 1500-1000 years ago. The lava has since become partly overgrown with a variety of native plants, but the large fissures, lava caves and pressure ridges are prominent. Rodents and reptiles here have adapted to the lava with abnormally dark coloration for camouflage against the black rock. The Bureau of Land Management maintains a very nice and clearly marked path that is about 1.5 miles long and is not hard to climb over. There a couple picnic tables at the top of the valley overlooking the entire lava flow. As the Valley is just a twenty minute drive from Alamogordo and White Sands National Monument, the tables make a wonderful picnic location overlooking this amazing geological feature.