Saturday, July 28, 2018

Aden Lava Flow Wilderness - Gardner Cones, Organ Mountains Desert Peaks National Monument








  I've been intrigued by this little group of volcanic hills in Aden Lava Flow Wilderness Study Area ever since I first saw them on Google Earth. They are not part the Aden Flow and sit atop an older flow, isolated and rising about 100 feet above the flat plains sparsely vegetated with mesquite and creosote.
 One of the hills didn't resemble the many cinder cones in area. It was significantly smaller,  a bit steeper and had a sharp, perfectly circular rim. It didn't resemble the larger shield volcano cone of Aden Crater either. From above it looked more like miniature stratovolcano.
 So off I went. It was cool enough on Friday after heavy overnight rains. Blue sky was woven with thin clouds and the temperature was initially in the upper seventies and never exceeded 86 degrees.
It was a long drive in order to circumvent the JCJ Ranch, which had a sign trumpeting it as the " Home of the Lean Cows." No kidding. There looked like there was very little feed in the harsh desert landscape, where sand, silt and gravel were all that was in between the widely spaced, but happily flowering creosote.

 I parked and began trucking the 1.5 miles to the crater. Lizards constantly scurried and jackrabbits warily moved from hiding place to hiding place. Ocotillo were thick with their green summer leaves.
I had seen a couple of rattlers on the roads while driving, but encountered none while walking.
 I climbed up to the jagged, rim of the mini- volcano first.  It was composed of very rough lava twisted into fantastic shapes.

I found the USGS spike right away, and then walked down into the crater bottom 15 feet below.


Walking out the other side and  I circled around and began heading down to the central depression of the entire cluster. Blocky boulders of smooth, dense and gray basalt were exposed on the hill on the northeast side. This struck me as strange in this land of cinders and rough lavas. In the bottom there were iron spikes with with candy cane covers slipped over them driven into the expanse of bare, light colored dirt.





 I walked out along a ravine that drained east. A fissure where lava seemed to freeze in mid-air was on one side. On the other, was a hill of cinders, nearly completely bare except for large ocotillos.


 I  would have liked to have stayed longer, but I was worried that if the clouds went away, the heat would come up fast. They didn't and it didn't, so after sighting the 4Runner it was a pleasant walk back.

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4 Comments:

Anonymous Ryan Schroeder said...

Is the road through the JCJ ranch closed off? I'm looking to access that area here soon and it looks like the road through the ranch is a public county road. Just am curious as to why you circumvented the ranch. Thanks and Happy Holidays! - Ryan

December 23, 2021 at 11:38 AM  
Blogger Devon Fletcher said...

I have a feeling that a gate may have been locked in there, or that someone had told me the gate was locked. It may have also been that there was sign on one of those roads out there that said it " dead ends" at private property( which may be why none of the roads that end up at the ranch are numbered as a through route), but I really don't remember exactly why I avoided driving through the ranch. It wasn't that big of a deal go around, all the roads were good on the route I took. If you try to drive through the ranch, let me know how it turns out.

December 23, 2021 at 12:22 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Hey Devon: Are the directions to the Aden Lava Flow the same as in your book? Also, it looks like most of this is public land and that you could walk (3 miles?) to the Aden Crater from the Aden Lava flow. We have the New Mexico State Lands permit. Thanks.

February 5, 2023 at 3:34 PM  
Blogger Devon Fletcher said...

Yes. The hike in the book is to Aden Crater(the little volcano that birthed the lava flow) which is within the Aden Lava Flow Wilderness. The lava flow lies mostly to the east of the crater. The Gardner Cones are within the wilderness as well and are only about 2 miles north of Kilbourne Hole

February 5, 2023 at 8:41 PM  

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