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| | Tent Rocks Canyon Cave Loop, NM | | | |
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Tent Rocks Canyon Cave Loop, NM
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| Hiking | 3.75 Miles |
827 AEG |
| | Hiking | 3.75 Miles | | | |
| 827 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Day 4 of my road trip. Got up early to very gray skies and drove around to the other side of the lake to the Visitor's Center for Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. The first shuttle and my reservation was for 8:00 a.m. This is an unusual National Monument in there is a lot of rules and limitations, which I'm fine with, but it just means you have to plan in advance a bit. They only allow so many vehicles a day and it takes 2 different reservations/permits to even go. They must have had to make some concessions to the local Pueblo, as the road into the actual Monument runs through the Pueblo. Thus, from the Visitor's Center, you can only drive in to the Monument following a Pilot Vehicle and the same on the way out. Your drive is completely escorted through the Pueblo itself. The Monument opens at 8 a.m. and closes at 4 p.m. and is only open 4 days a week and has additional closures depending on holidays and the Pueblo events. At 3 p.m., multiple Rangers show up at the Trailheads and head up and out to start herding people to their vehicles. The 4 p.m. closure is strictly enforced here.
At the Visitor's Center for check-in, it starts spitting rain. I ask the Ranger inside if there's concern about hiking the Slot Canyon in this weather and his answer was... "Nah, it never rains here". I wonder if he remembered that comment a couple of hours later.  Followed the Pilot Truck in, and decided to do the Slot Canyon/Overlook Cave Loop first as it was the longer hike. The skies were getting darker, so I took my rain gear and waterproof camera along. They came in handy.
The Hike was amazing. Through a bonafide Slot Canyon that kept opening and closing up and ascending through what I coined as Tent City, with no Sheriff in sight. You hit the Slot Canyon turnoff almost immediately on the Cave loop and I'm betting I wasn't 300 feet in when the rain started. Put the rain gear on and got the TG-5 out and kept going. It rained on and off for the majority of this trail, with the heaviest at the top, at the Overlook. With the rain, the Overlook views were a bit foggy and limited, but still pretty awesome. It really was incredible scenery for the whole hike on this trail. I was not concerned about Flash Flooding even with the rain because after seeing the terrain from the top, there didn't seem to be a very large drainage field. I imagine that at some point, with enough prolonged heavy rain, the slot could flash. It wouldn't have become a slot at all unless water ran through it occasionally at some point.
I descended back down to the Cave Trail and finished the Loop. The "Cave" was probably pretty cool for most, as long as you haven't been to Bandelier where caves like that were common.  Hiked back to the truck and made my way to the next shorter hike with plenty of time to spare, although I ended up using all that was remaining due to meeting a friend on the way back down the road. |
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Wildflowers Observation Light
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| Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty & well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, totally worn out & proclaiming, "Wow What a Ride!" |
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