El Morro National Monument

This morning was picture perfect - no wind! We set off to explore the El Morro National Monument. Located 42 miles away from Grants, we traveled up into the hills and back across the Continental Divide to get there.


Finally, our first look at El Morro. According to the Rangers, El Morro is Spanish and translates to “the headland” or “the bluff“. We can’t figure out how it translates to that, but then we aren’t proficient in Spanish, so we will just take their word for it.


The first order of business when we got to the Visitor Center was to get me my belated birthday present! I have been waiting patiently for my “Golden Age Passport” card - I didn’t get one because they have changed it! The old card still works as usual, but now they call it a “Senior Pass”. Oh well, at least the new Senior Pass I got works exactly like the old Golden Age Passport does - so I am a happy camper! I am officially a Senior Citizen according to the U.S. Government!!! I have graduated……(smile)

The Rangers were very helpful with interesting facts about the monument. They also gave us some insight on the long loop trail to the top of the Bluff - we appreciated that a lot. El Morro is actually a ‘cuesta’ - a long formation with a gentle upward slope that drops off abruptly at one end …..basically a cliff! This place was easily spotted by traveling Indians, Spanish Explorers, Conquistadors, U.S. Military expeditions, and Pioneers. It became widely known that at the base of the big cliff was a reliable pool of clean water all year around. Over time the visitors began carving their names into the sandstone to record that they had been there.


Here we are at the edge of the pool. Water drains from the top of El Morro into the pool - rains in the Summer and Snow melt in the Winter. When full, the pool is over 12 feet deep and can hold over 200,000 gallons of water. The pool never dries up, but does shrink due to evaporation at times.



This is just a small example of the over 2000 inscriptions carved into the sandstone of El Morro. There are inscriptions dating back to at least 1605. Of course, there are also Petroglyphs that were put there even before that. After El Morro became a National Monument in 1906, it became illegal to put any new inscriptions on the sandstone walls. In the 1920’s, the first Superintendent decided to erase any inscription place there after 1906. Those inscriptions were deemed to be graffiti and unlawful. There are many smoothed out places in the sandstone where something was obviously buffed out.


This is the first inscription that is in English. In 1849 an Army Engineer and a Philadelphia Artist hired by the Army as a Topographer came to El Morro. They couldn’t find any inscription in English, so they were the first to record the presence of an English person. The Artist took two days to faithfully copy each and every inscription - his copies were so good it was like looking at photographs!


We are sitting almost under the first English inscription - resting in the shade. Now time to take our hike!


At the top of the Bluff is the ruins of the Atsinna Pueblo. The trail is a 2 mile loop, but we are kinda cheating by going up the short side - still ½ mile, mostly straight up. The name Atsinna is translated as “where pictures on the rocks”. The Indians that lived here most likely came here from Chaco Canyon when that Pueblo started to break up. They lived here from approximately 1275 - 1400. These ancestors of the Zuni People abandoned the cliff top Pueblo and moved West - closer to a better source of water for their crops.



The trail started out pretty easy - got harder - then got harder yet. Wait for pics of the many stairs we had to climb - I only took pictures coming back down.



At the top we discovered the part of the Pueblo that has been excavated and preserved. They say there was over 800 rooms on at least 3 levels which housed from 1000 to 1500 people. The entire Pueblo was enclosed within the outside walls and entrance was by long ladders, which were pulled up at night - making the Pueblo very safe.

The views from the top were absolutely awesome! With full sunshine, gentle breezes and warm temps - we almost thought we had made it to heaven……



Here we go, back down the way we came up. We probably could have gone down the other side, but by this time we just wanted to get back to the Visitor Center and ½ mile is a lot shorter than 1 ½ miles. It was much easier going down to be sure. Once again we are hiking at well above the 7000 foot level in elevation - surprisingly neither of us had much of a problem - we just took our time and rested when we got tired!

Tomorrow is Memorial Day and we will likely just hang around the Coach. We want to thank every Veteran that reads this for their service to our great country. We also want to thank all the dependants who supported and stood by the Veteran’s so that they could serve. Without our Veteran’s our country would not be as great a place to live as it is. THANK YOU!