El Malpais National Monument | free camping | great lava hiking!

El Malpais National Monument is located south of I-40 at Grants New Mexico. It covers an enormous area of lava fields, volcanic cones, ice caves and lava tubes as well as massive sandstone bluffs. One of those bluffs holds La Ventana Natural Arch. We stopped there for the short hike before continuing on down the road to the FREE campground, Joe Skeen BLM campground.
After checking out the campground we stopped for lunch and a short hike on the Acoma-Zuni trail. This trail is also part of the Continental Divide Scenic Trail. We even found some of the trail magic left for those long-distance hikers. Ron has been cleared by his doctor (hip surgery in Oct) for short level hikes, so this looked perfect for us for the first mile. It was beautiful but very rocky with lava.
We will definitely return once Ron heals completely as these trails are not easy due to footing, large cravasses, and elevation gains. There is a loop hike that also takes you up over top of La Ventana Arch and we must do that one next time as well as one or two of the lave tube and cave hikes. Those look spectacular. We will camp at Joe Skeen campground we we go back!