Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
279
sources of light when entering lava tubes. The weather can change suddenly, so be pre-
pared; if lightning is around, move off the lava as quickly as possible.
Primitive camping is allowed in the park, but you must first obtain a free backcountry
permit from the visitor center.
EL MORRO NATIONAL MONUMENT
Travelers who like to look history straight in the eye are fascinated by “Inscription Rock,”
43 miles west of Grants along NM 53. Looming up out of the sand and sagebrush is a
bluff 200 feet high, holding some of the most captivating messages in North America.
Its sandstone face displays a written record of the many who inhabited and traveled
through this land, beginning with the ancestral Puebloans, who lived atop the formation
around 1200. Carved with steel points are the signatures and comments of almost every
explorer, conquistador, missionary, army officer, surveyor, and pioneer who passed this
way between 1605, when Gov. Don Juan de Oñate carved the first inscription, and 1906,
when it was preserved by the National Park Service. Oñate's inscription, dated April 16,
1605, was perhaps the first graffiti any European left in America.
A paved walkway makes it easy to walk to the writings, and a stone stairway leads up
to other treasures. One entry reads: “Year of 1716 on the 26th of August passed by here
Don Feliz Martinez, Governor and Captain General of this realm to the reduction and
conquest of the Moqui.” Confident of success as he was, Martinez actually got nowhere
with any “conquest of the Moqui,” or Hopi, peoples. After a 2-month battle, they chased
him back to Santa Fe.
Another special group to pass by this way was the U.S. Camel Corps, trekking past on
their way from Texas to California in 1857. The camels worked out fine in mountains
and deserts, outlasting horses and mules 10 to 1, but the Civil War ended the experi-
ment. When Peachy Breckinridge, fresh out of the Virginia Military Academy, came by
with 25 camels, he noted the fact on the stone here.
El Morro was at one time as famous as the Blarney Stone of Ireland: Everybody had
to stop by and make a mark. But when the Santa Fe Railroad was laid 25 miles to the
north, El Morro was no longer on the main route to California, and from the 1870s, the
tradition began to die out.
If you like to hike, be sure to take the full loop to the top of Inscription Rock. It's a
spectacular trip that takes you along the rim of this mesa—offering 360-degree views—
culminating in an up-close look at Anasazi ruins, which occupy an area 200 by 300 feet.
Inscription Rock's name, Atsinna, suggests that carving one's name here is a very old
custom indeed: The word, in Zuni, means “writing on rock.”
10
Essentials
GETTING THERE
El Morro is 43 miles west of Grants on NM 53.
VISITOR INFORMATION
For information, contact
El Morro National Monument,
HC61, Box 43, Ramah, NM 87321-9603 (
&
505/783-4226;
www.nps.gov/elmo).
Admission to El Morro is $3 per person 16 and older. Self-guided trail booklets are avail-
able at the visitor center (turn off NM 53 at the El Morro sign and travel approximately
a half-mile), open year-round from 9am to 5pm. Trails are also open year-round; check
with the
visitor center
for hours. A
museum
at the visitor center features exhibits on the
700 years of human activity at El Morro. A 15-minute video gives a good introduction
to the park. Also within the visitor center is a
bookstore
where you can pick up souvenirs
and informational books. It takes approximately 2 hours to visit the museum and hike
the trails. The park is closed on Christmas and New Year's Day.
