We pulled up to the entrance at 8:30am sharp, planning a quick stop at Capulin Volcano to kick off a long day of exploring northeastern New Mexico. “Rats,” I said. “The gate is closed.” That meant the rim drive at Capulin Volcano was closed, too. Mr. Adventure was sorely disappointed. He’d been looking forward to the views from the crater’s edge. “C’mon,” I said bracingly. “Let’s go to the visitor center. I’m sure there’s a hike we can do, at least.” Thus began one of the most unexpectedly delightful national park visits we’ve ever had.
It was freezing cold when we stepped out of the car and into the small visitor center. The ranger told us that yes, Volcano Road was closed to due ice and that it probably wouldn’t open for several hours, if at all. We could hike the mile-long Lava Flow Trail, though, and if we wanted more we could hike the two-mile-long Boca Trail, too. We pulled on hats, scarves, and gloves, and headed out into the brightening day.
Lava Flow Trail
Capulin Volcano National Monument is small, just 793 acres. Proclaimed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916, the monument preserves a symmetrical cinder cone, a type of extinct volcano. Capulin (Spanish for “chokecherry”) is part of the Raton-Clayton Volcanic Field, a vast, 8,000-square-mile plain speckled with mesas, cones, domes, and shield volcanoes active from 9 million to about 60,000 years ago. Capulin Volcano formed at the end of that period, making it a geological youngster.
The Lava Flow Trail loops around the lower slopes of Capulin’s southwest side, providing a good look at the cone and an even better look at the volcanic field. Seven miles to the southeast, the long shoulders of Sierra Grande, the tallest feature in the Raton-Clayton Volcanic Field, rise gently 2,200 feet from the floor of the plains. Sierra Grande is a shield volcano, formed from highly fluid lava. When that lava reaches the surface, its fluidity means it spreads farther, creating the long, low, sloping profile typical of shield volcanoes. Apparently they’re called shields because that’s what some early geologist thought they looked like.
The previous night’s snow had settled in the golden prairie grasses and on the green-black boughs of juniper and pine. Lava boulders were trimmed in white. The cold air felt more like midwinter than early spring, as our breath plumed out and dissipated into the crystalline sky.
As the ranger promised, it was a beautiful walk. But it had taken only 30 minutes. It wasn’t enough. We walked through the shuttered picnic area to a connector path that led to the Boca Trail, crossing the still-closed Volcano Road to reach the trailhead.
Boca Trail
At first, the trail didn’t look too promising. It followed the road before veering off onto the northwestern slopes of the volcano. But as we climbed, the sky cleared and the weak spring sunlight grew stronger. The colors seemed more vivid against the sparkling snow, buff grasses poking in tufts from the ground, dark red lava dust exposed as our footprints melted. What started as a compensatory hike turned into something magical.
At one point, the trail runs right against the barbed-wire fence that delineates the monument’s boundary, which brought home how small and precious this place is. Capulin Volcano National Monument is one of only a few National Park Service units in the Southern Great Plains.
A rare Southern Plains park
The historian Dan Flores, in his magnificent book American Serengeti: The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains, bemoans this paucity of preserved land. Although the Northern Plains feature large parks such as Badlands, Wind Cave, and Theodore Roosevelt, the Southern Plains have only “a scattering of national wildlife refuges and very small national monuments,” including Capulin Volcano and Alibates Flint Quarry, 150 miles away in the Texas Panhandle.
There are several reasons for this, including that the person in charge of scouting potential new parks for the Park Service in the 1930s, one Roger Toll, looked for monumental scenery and felt the Southern Plains didn’t have it, at least of the Yosemite-Grand Canyon-Yellowstone type. Although others in the National Park Service were increasingly focused on preserving important ecosystems — Everglades is perhaps the primary example — Toll remained unconvinced.
The agency explored making Palo Duro Canyon in West Texas a national monument (it’s a spectacular state park, and nearby Caprock Canyon was added to the state park system later) but the notion of a large Southern Plains park ultimately failed, victim of the projected costs of acquiring private land, local ambivalence, and insufficient Park Service support.
Knowing this makes Capulin Volcano feel even more remarkable. In 1891, the General Land Office removed the volcano from settlement, citing it as a “perfect example of an extinct volcano.” That protected it from development until President Wilson proclaimed it a national monument in 1916.
The boca of Boca Trail
Back on the Boca Trail, we peered into lava tubes and crossed lava flows emanating from the volcano’s vents. “Boca” means mouth and indicates the place from which Capulin’s lava oozed, covering nearly 16 square miles, an area far larger than the 1.25-square-mile monument. Birds tweeted and flitted past, gathering breakfast in the chill air. An old stone chimney marked a former camping area.
We dallied on the trail, enjoying the silence and scenery. Back at the visitor center, we learned Volcano Road had just opened — hooray! — although we should watch for small patches of ice as we drove up. We hopped in the car and slowly ascended the two-mile spiral to the rim.
On Capulin’s crater rim
The mile-long rim trail offers 360-degree views of the Raton-Clayton Volcanic Field, an area where the Southern Plains meet the Rocky Mountains. This transition zone packs a lot of biological diversity, with mountain-loving pines growing in fields of prairie grasses.
We started up the paved Crater Rim Trail, watching for icy spots. The rim is tilted, and the trail starts at the lowest point, so we climbed up to the opposite edge before starting down again. Interpretive signs along the way identified various landmarks, including the town of Folsom, New Mexico, about 20 minutes to the northeast by car.
Once a prosperous ranching town, Folsom’s population today is about 55. But its fame stems from the 1908 discovery of bones from an extinct species of bison that changed our understanding of when humans arrived in North America. Some of the bones, discovered by a ranch foreman who’d ridden out to inspect the damage after a deadly flash flood, had projectile points embedded in them. Archaeological investigations dated the bones to more than 10,000 years ago. Until that time, humans were thought to have arrived in North America no more than 3,000 years ago. The Folsom Points, as they became known, proved that humans had lived here for far longer, hunting the bison whose bones lay exposed in a gully about eight miles from the present town.
More human history is visible from the crater rim. The Santa Fe Trail passed nearby, and volcanic landmarks such as Black Mesa (55 miles east-northeast in Oklahoma) and Rabbit Ear Mountain (20 miles southeast) told travelers they were nearing the end of their journey. On a clear day, you can see four states from Capulin’s rim: New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado and Texas.
Into Capulin’s crater
Even with long pauses to gaze into the dreamy distance, the rim trail didn’t take long. We returned to the parking lot and turned onto the Crater Vent Trail, a short paved path that takes visitors into the heart of the crater. We stood at the overlook at the end of the trail and looked at the plugged vent of the volcano.
Truth be told, there’s not a lot to see. It’s an extinct volcano, after all. But if the reactions of the kids we saw on the trail are any indication, it was very cool to be able to walk down into the heart of the crater.
A morning well spent
By this time, we’d been at Capulin Volcano much longer than we anticipated — nearly five hours. But we were delighted with our experience there: the sweeping plains views, the sort-of-secret Boca Trail, the juniper- and dust-scented air. We planned to drive across the Raton-Clayton Volcanic Plain to Black Mesa, both to see Oklahoma’s highest point and so Mr. Adventure could claim to have visited another state. On the way we’d stop to look at dinosaur footprints in situ at Clayton Lake State Park, too. We did all of that, and it was wonderful. But Capulin Volcano? That was the day’s highlight.