National Monuments provide a variety of glimpses into smaller significant areas of the United States that may not warrant National Park status, but still need to be persevered. We were able to visit 4 National Monuments over the past week.

March 9: El Malpias NM, west of Albuquerque, that highlights the geological evidence of volcanos with blackened landscapes, cinder cones and what we found most interesting, the collapsed lava tubes that provide a cave-like system.

March 11: Gila Cliff Dwellings NM, north east of the SW corner of NM preserves caves and cliff dwellings of ancient Mogollon people dating back to the 1400’s.

March 15: Chiricahua, NM, on the SE corned of Arizona that are more evidence of volcanic activity with heavy erosion and sculpting to form and isolated mountain range above the sea of grassland. We visited Chiricahua 3 years ago and enjoyed wandering around the “standing up rocks”, as they were known by the Chiricahua Apache that we wanted to re-visit for another hike.

March 17: Organ Pipe Cactus NM, on the south-central board of Arizona and Mexico provide a protected glimpse of the Sonora Desert and the unique Organ Pipe Cactus. This National Monument has been in the news for the past 20 years on and off as it is a major crossing for illegal activity from Mexico. In the late 1990 and early 2000’s it was so dangerous with smuggling, that a park ranger was killed during a confrontation with illegal smuggling activity. It has been a very controversial area of recent activity in building the wall between the US and Mexico.