On our way to Taos, NM, we approached the cinder cone of Capulin Volcano. It is managed by the National Park Service as a national monument. It takes about 10 minutes to drive the 2 miles up the road that circles the cone. Most of the road had no guard rails. At the rim was a parking lot. We hiked the 1 mile trail around the rim which involved over 300 ft of elevation change. Then, we hiked down into the bottom of the crater about 1/4 mile. At 8000 ft elevation, we were out of breath several times. We flat landers from Iowa aren’t used to getting above 700 ft elevation.
On a clear day, you can see CO, NM, OK, TX, and maybe KS.
Click to embig.
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It does appear to be a bit of a challenging climb for folks not used to elevations.
Embig. 🙂
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Fortunately, there is a road to the rim.
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Looks beautiful. I should remember this for a future trip.
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We went from Enid, OK out the panhandle to Clayton, NM Monday. Talk about flat. At Clayton, the topography changed. We started seeing buttes and volcano remnants. One hour northwest of Clayton is this cone. Soon after were high mountains.
Beautiful. You should see the area.
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We’ve visited there several times on our way to southern Colorado. Neat place to see.
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It was fun, and a good spot to stretch our legs and condition our lungs to higher elevation.
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