Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument
Interesting facts
- The volcanic deposits that formed the tent rocks are more than 1,000 feet thick, banded in grey, beige and pink.
- Small rounded beads of obsidian, volcanic glass cooled so quickly it never crystallised, lie scattered in the arroyos and are known as Apache tears.
- People have lived around these canyons for some 4,000 years, and several large ancestral pueblos were built nearby in the 14th and 15th centuries.
- Francisco Vásquez de Coronado recorded Cochiti Pueblo in 1540, and its people later took part in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 that drove out Spanish settlers.
- The monument lies on the flank of the Valles and Toledo calderas, giant collapse craters formed by eruptions about 1.61 and 1.25 million years ago.
- Two rock units build the landscape: the older, whitish to orange-tan Peralta Tuff and the younger grey Cochiti Formation above it.
- Manzanita with red bark, Apache plume and Indian paintbrush grow among ponderosa pines and piñon-juniper woodland around the cones.
- Golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, elk and wild turkeys are among the wildlife recorded around the monument.
- Scenes for the 1990s science-fiction television series Earth 2 were filmed among the tent rocks.
Why it is worth it
Cones of pale volcanic rock, some no taller than a person and others up to about 90 feet high, crowd the slopes of a small canyon on the Pajarito Plateau of northern New Mexico. Many still balance a cap of harder stone on their tips. The Keresan name Kasha-Katuwe means "white cliffs", a reference to the light-coloured layers of tuff and pumice from which the formations are carved. The monument covers about 5,400 acres at elevations of roughly 5,700 to 6,400 feet.
The rock was laid down six to seven million years ago by pyroclastic flows from eruptions in the volcanic field of the Jemez Mountains, and is assigned to the Peralta Tuff. Wind and water have since worn the soft layers into cones wherever a resistant caprock shielded the material beneath, and have cut narrow slot canyons through the deposits. Tent rocks are a form of hoodoo, and here they stand in dense groups along the canyon walls.
The Slot Canyon trail threads one of these narrow corridors for about 1.5 miles before climbing some 630 feet to a viewpoint above the cones, with the Jemez Mountains, Cochiti Pueblo lands and the Rio Grande valley beyond. The Cave Loop trail runs along the base of the cliffs, past tent rocks and a small cavate, a dwelling cut into the soft rock similar to those at nearby Bandelier. The monument was established by President Bill Clinton in January 2001 and is managed jointly by the Bureau of Land Management and the Pueblo de Cochiti.
Getting there
The monument lies near Cochiti Pueblo in Sandoval County, about 40 miles (65 km) south-west of Santa Fe, between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF) is about 30 km away in a straight line; Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) is roughly 70 km away.
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From the encyclopaedia
Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument is a U.S. National Monument located approximately 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, near Cochiti Pueblo. Managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Cochiti Pueblo tribe, it was established as a national monument by President Bill Clinton in January 2001. Kasha-Katuwe means "white cliffs" in the Pueblo language Keresan. The monument is a unit of the BLM's National Conservation Lands.
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