El Malpais & Petroglyph NHS

El Malpais National Monument to La Cienega, NM | La Ventana Natural Arch | Petroglyph National Monument | La Cieneguilla Petroglyphs | January 2026

We survived our coldest night of camping yet, with the temperature dropping to 5 degrees Fahrenheit in El Malpais National Monument (not counting windchill)! Unfortunately, despite running the heater throughout the night, our water pump still froze which made making breakfast difficult the next morning. Thankfully we have an alternative way to get water from our fresh water tank, it just requires opening the door which was something we were trying to avoid on this frigid morning.

We started our day off with driving a few miles South to the Ventana Natural Arch trailhead. I know, we were crazy thinking we should start off our single-digit temperature morning with a hike, but luckily the arch was visible from the parking area so we didn’t have to walk far to get a better view. There was no denying that it was even more beautiful than usual thanks to the snow. After a short walk to an unobstructed view, Curtis attempted a letterbox while I retreated to the van. Honestly, after camping in below freezing temps for the past several nights, I felt like I was pretty well adjusted to the cold by this point.

Next, we drove up to the BLM visitor center near the entrance to the park. We intended on spending a little time in there to enjoy the warmth of being inside, but when we arrived we found that the building wasn’t heated and the poor ranger there was wearing her jacket! We still took our time walking through the exhibits and chatting with the ranger before continuing on our way.

After that, we drove back up to I-40 and continued our drive East. We were planning on spending a few more days in New Mexico, seeing some new sites before beginning our drive back to the Midwest in earnest. As it always happens, we were easily able to pick out some attractions that we had never visited before in New Mexico — a state we regrettably neglected to explore while living in the Southwest, and have worked each subsequent visit to make up for that. Today this brought us to a national monument that we didn’t even realize existed in Albuquerque — Petroglyph National Monument. This park seemed to be broken into 3 hiking areas, with the visitor center separate from those three areas. To make things easy today, we chose to stick to the sites off of NM-345, which was easy to reach from the interstate and would allow us to both hike in the park and visit the visitor center.

We started at the trailhead for Rinconada Canyon. As soon as we got out of the van, we were delighted to discover that it felt so much warmer here than it did at El Malpais! I mean, it could have been in the 20s and even that would have felt warm, but I’m fairly certain it was even warmer than that, with plenty of sun. What a gift from the Southwest before having to part ways! We hiked the 3 mile loop trail in a counter-clockwise fashion, enjoying the sun, the petroglyphs, the views of the canyon and far off mountains to the East, and of course all the desert plants surrounding us, knowing that we’d soon be back to missing the desert. After our walk, we had lunch in the van, then drove to the visitor center where we got our stamps and watched the short film, which was set up in a covered area outside, perfect to continue enjoying the warm weather!

After that, we made our way North to La Cienega where we planned to spend the night. We found our way to the trailhead for La Cieneguilla Petroglyphs, which is a BLM area that allows overnight parking in the lot. With that settled, we continued our theme of the day which had turned into seeing petroglyphs. There wasn’t as much here as compared to the national monument, but it was still a fun little activity to do right from where we planned to camp for the night. After our walk, Curtis went in search of another letterbox while I hunkered down in the van. It was a bit cooler here than it was in Albuquerque, and growing colder as the sun was setting, but at least it wouldn’t be as cold as the night before!

Hiking in El Malpais National Monument with Charlotte in December 2021