Sunset Crater Volcano and Capulin Volcano national monuments: Discovering Lava in the Southwest

Expanding my understanding of North America’s volcanic history beyond the West Coast’s Ring of Fire.

 Sunset Crater from the Lava Flow Trail

I grew up in Oregon in the shadow of the Ring of Fire (not the Johnny Cash song).  It is a gigantic horseshoe of volcanos stretching up the west coast of North and South America to Alaska (where I live now), out the Aleutian chain to Russia, and south to Japan and the Philippines – ringing the Pacific ocean.  I was dusted with ash when Mt. Saint Helens blew and I hiked in Cascade mountain Wilderness areas named for volcanos – Mt. Washington, Mt. Jefferson and Three Sisters.  As a child, I traveled with my grandparents to see the grandest of them all – Crater Lake, the caldera of ancient Mount Mazama and Oregon’s only National Park.  Volcanos are part of my life and are integral to the landscape of the west coast and Alaska.  So when my quest to visit all the national park units took me to Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument in Arizona and Capulin Volcano National Monument in New Mexico, I was fascinated to learn about some non-Ring of Fire volcanos in the American southwest.

My girlfriend Craig and I visited Sunset Crater, located about 15 miles north of Flagstaff off Highway 89, on a sunny October day.  We were traveling with our Alto trailer and thought we’d camp at Bonito, a Forest Service campground a couple miles from Sunset’s Visitor Center.  Unfortunately it was closed, the operating months being “late spring through early fall.”  There were plenty of RVs cruising the highway looking for a place to spend the night, but some budget cruncher at the Forest Service decided that closing campgrounds in September was the “best management practice.”  Bummer for us as we ended up at a semi-urban KOA in Flagstaff, not our first choice of a place to spend the night.  But we got a shower out of the deal and were up and out early the next morning to the Visitor Center where we learned why there are volcanos in Arizona.

It seems there is some kind of localized “hot spot” deep within the earth in this part of northern Arizona.  As the massive North American Plate moves slowly over the "hot spot," periodic eruptions over the past 6 million years pushed through the plate and created a string of volcanos stretching about 50 miles east from Williams, AZ to Sunset Crater, the youngest volcano in the San Francisco Volcanic Field.  There are over 600 identified volcanos in the field, named after its largest, San Francisco Peak.   

The National Park Service was tasked by President Herbert Hoover with protecting Sunset Crater after a Hollywood film company proposed blowing up one side of the crater to create a rock landslide for a Zane Grey movie titled Avalanche, a silent movie of which a copy no longer exists.  Local outcry stopped the explosion and led to President Hoover using the Antiquities Act to create the National Monument in 1930.  

                                                              Craig deep in the lava on the Lava Flow Trail

 Historically you could hike the 1,000 feet elevation gain to the top of Sunset Crater, but erosion damage from hikers caused the Park Service to close the trail in 1973.  You can still see the trail scar.  Even though climbing Sunset Crater is not an option, the paved beginning of the one-mile Lave Flow Trail gives you good Crater views before it drops into the heart of the lava field. You are literally walking inside the lava flow as the trail winds around and through piles of what was once molten rock.  The Park Service has done a good job with the signage that interprets what you are seeing.  As an alternative to climbing Sunset Crater, the Park Service has built a trail to the top of the neighboring, 300 foot high Lenox Crater, giving you the sense of what it’s like to hike up a cinder cone.

There is ongoing debate about exactly when the volcano first erupted and for how long.  Initial research in the late 1950s pegged the eruption to 1065 and speculated that it could have lasted for up to 200 years.  Recent research suggests the eruption started in 1085 and lasted just a few years.  In either case, there were people living in the area before and after the eruption and you can visit their most recent homes a few miles down the road at the Wupatki Pueblo in Wupatki National Monument.  

One can only imagine what it must have been like to wake up one morning to a volcano erupting a couple dozen miles away, raining ash on you and your crops and home.  After the eruptions, people moved back into the region and started farming again on soils that were enriched from volcanic ash. But as with many of the native peoples in the southwest, they had permanently moved on by 1250 or so, leaving only their homes behind. 

Another geologic “hot spot” on the North American Plate is the Raton-Clayton Volcanic Field in northeastern New Mexico, home of Capulin Volcano National Monument.  Capulin and the surrounding lands were first withdrawn “from settlement, entry or other disposition” in 1891 because it was such a perfect specimen of a volcano.  President Woodrow Wilson created the Monument in 1916 and Congress expanded the acreage in 1962 in order to preserve the volcanos’ “scenic and scientific integrity.”  Capulin volcano was a landmark for travelers on the Santa Fe Trail and discoveries at nearby archeological sites helped determined that humans have been in the region for at least 10,000 years.

                                                  Beginning of the trail around the rim of Capulin Volcano

Craig and I visited Capulin last December and based out of Raton, New Mexico, the nearest town.  We stayed at a very nice, affordable and locally owned motel, The Raton Pass Inn. It is within walking distance of Raton’s historic downtown, which includes the Colfax Ale Cellar where I added several local beers to my ever growing beer list. Raton is also near Philmont Scout Ranch where I worked one summer in high school, so this was a bit of a “memory lane” trip as well. 

From Raton, it is a short 30 mile drive on highway 64/87 to Capulin.  It was sunny, but cold and a bit windy when we rolled into the Visitor Center parking lot.  Not the ideal time to visit, but we did have the place almost to ourselves.   Unlike Sunset Crater, there is a paved road to the top of this volcano.  The road was initially constructed with a mule-drawn plow and was completed in 1925.  The Civil Works Project in the 1930s provided additional labor to widen and maintain the road, which includes some outstanding rock embankments reminding me of work done in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps.  When I inquired about who did the rockwork, I was told it was done in the 1980s, a recent example of fine rock craftsmanship you seem to only find in National Parks.  

 View from the top of Capulin Volcano towards Rabbit Ears Mt. and Johnson Mesa

Capulin is a much older geologic structure than Sunset, having erupted some 60,000 years ago.  Rising 1,300 feet from the surrounding plains, the 360 degree view from the top includes the four lava fields that flowed from Capulin and numerous other volcanic features including Robinson Peak, Rabbit Ears Mountain and Johnson Mesa.  These views are best seen from the one mile loop trail through the pinyon pine and around the rim of the crater.  The view makes this is one of the best short hikes I’ve done in all of the park system and the Park Service has done a great job of interpreting what you see in a series of panels at the mountaintop parking lot.  There is also a short trail that drops down into the crater’s bottom.  Even in a howling December wind, the hike was totally worth it.  

There are a couple of other trails, leaving from the visitor center and taking you into the heart of the lava fields.  I’ve hiked numerous lava fields in my day, so we passed on those trails.  But if you are new to volcanos, these trails looked like a great introduction to lava flows and geologic features like lava lakes and lava tubes.

It turns out that volcanos are much more common in the Southwest than I would have imagined.  Besides the two explored in this little essay, the Park Service hosts three other volcanic features in New Mexico alone at El Malpais National Monument, Valles Caldera National Preserve and Petroglyph National Monument.  All are well worth a visit. Expanding my understanding of volcanos beyond the Ring of Fire is just another reason why I visit and so deeply appreciate our national park system.