Kasha-Katuwe, Tent Rocks: THE magical park of New Mexico

You get to the top, you turn, and turn and turn and you are part of the entire overwhelming immensity of the raw Southwest and the nearer almost silly and fantastical looking towers: you are in awe.

Touring in New Mexico, and the Tent Rock park comes up near or at the top of things to do. Truly, it deserves every visit, praise and meditation it inspires. If you visit NM, or even better, Sante Fe, it is an easy 30-minute drive.

The Kasha-Katuwe park has a fantasy-land feeling in the strange, local area of conical, tapered spires that surround you as you look across an immense horizon. Physically, you can bite off as much or as little as you want — but the entire loop is (I believe) nearly three miles and very demanding at times, especially at the end climb. That should be your first decision; get a map and weigh your path.

You hike from a flat plain, into foothillsthat quickly narrow to a one-person path which winds in and out of magical coverings and limestone layered rock; the layers of ash cascading down over years and years from a nearby volcano, one that was very active and created this natural beauty over twenty million years ago.

Fortunate for us, as we went up the final arduous (but worth it) climb to the top of the park, a group of school teenagers trailed down, leaving one woman behind who told she was a geologist hired by the school to lecture them on this road trip of New Mexico (they were from Texas). She was generous with her time and passion for geology and told us of the origin of the cones from clouds of volcanic ash, how their exteriors hardened to a cement-like covering, which over the millennia was wearing away, revealing rivulets of time and the ear-and-true of the Earth on its own treasures.

New Mexico has far less to see than Arizona, a natural (literally) comparison for travel; and I spent years in AZ, college, after, many many visits and road trips, so I favor and love it. (My review of Sedona gives me away).