Kasha-Katuwe

With just three days left in his term, the first President Clinton declared seven new “National Monuments” by executive order, setting aside large areas of environmentally sensitive land and ensuring that they would  receive federal protection from commercial development. (The move wasn’t popular with some western politicians, who didn’t want to see their states’ land being put under federal control. “What the president seems to be doing is creating an environmental legacy for himself,” said Rep. Dennis Rehberg R-Mont.—as if that’s a bad thing.)

One of the monuments was Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument in northern New Mexico, about 25 miles west of Santa Fe. Kasha-Katuwe—which means “White Cliffs” in the native Pueblo language—is an area of bizarre conical rock formations, created from massive volcanic eruptions in the Jemez Mountains some 6-7 million years ago. The eruptions left layered pumice, ash and tuff deposits up to 1,000 feet deep, which gradually eroded over time to form the tent rocks and canyons.

The U.S Bureau of Land Management maintains the site, which has recreational trails that wind through the formations and through a narrow “slot canyon”—with emphasis on the narrow. We visited yesterday on a beautiful New Mexico morning (and to be honest, I’ve spent a dozen mornings in New Mexico over three trips here, and every single one of them has been beautiful). The photos below are some of what we saw.