Lava Tube Caving at El Malpais National Monument

Alternate Plans: Back on the Four Corners Circuit
Friday & Saturday, May 27-28, 2022

The first time Diane and I visited El Malpais National Monument we knew that we wanted to explore some of the lava tube caves in the park, but at that time all the roads were snow-covered and muddy and the caves were closed, so we figured we would have come back during a warmer part of the year to check them out. Of course, the next time we visited El Malpais it happened to be during the first few months of the COVID pandemic, and by then all the caves had been closed due to that, so as I started planning this alternate trip I was happy to learn that El Malpais had just recently reopened two caves, after all of them being closed for over two years, and I knew that this was finally going to be our opportunity to check them out!

After spending the afternoon in El Morro National Monument we headed a little further east into The Malpais in search of a campsite for the night. We wanted to spend the night close to the caves so we could get an early start on Saturday morning and then be on our way home in the afternoon, so it was a good thing we were able to pick up our caving permit from the El Morro Visitor Center earlier in the day.

After crossing over the Continental Divide we followed the backroads past Cerro Rendija to the Big Tubes Area and then continued on a network of poorly-marked roads through the Little Hole-In-The-Wall area.

The roads were very dusty, but the clouds were looking nice this evening!

My Jeep was covered in ‘moon dust’ by the time we reached the trailhead for the Lava Bomb Cave.

With sharp lava rocks seemingly everywhere on the ground, I wasn’t sure if we were going to be able to find a place to pitch the tent. Thankfully, there was a flat area large enough without rocks not far from the trailhead and within the El Malpais National Conservation Area.

Although the temperature out was very nice this evening, there were a lot of large annoying flies out that kept us inside the tent. Once the sun went down we went to bed early so we could get an early start in the morning.

We woke up with the sun on Saturday morning, packed up our camp and quickly started our first hike to the Lava Bomb Cave. The Lava Bomb Cave is a small but spectacular cave located deep in the El Malpais Wilderness adjacent to Hoya de Cibola, which is a large volcanic vent structure that forms a deep scar on the terrain. This shallow cave features a skylight created when a large projectile, or “lava bomb,” launched from a nearby volcanic vent and crashed into a lava tube.

There’s not much to the trailhead for the Lava Bomb Cave. It’s just a chain across an old road with nowhere to turn around that’s a little tricky to find.

We followed some faint old roads to the rim of Hoya de Cibola.

Then we followed the rocky rim to the Lava Bomb Cave.

Lava Bomb Cave

Diane descending into the cave ahead of me.

Here it is! The lava bomb and the skylight it created when it crashed through the roof of this lava tube.

Here’s a closer look at the Lava Bomb.

After exploring the small cave for a little bit, we hiked back to the Jeep and then headed over to the Big Tubes Trailhead so we could visit the Giant Ice Cave next.

After a short hike along the Big Tubes Trail we crossed over a Lava Bridge and then found the easy climb down into the Lava Trench.

We boulder-hopped through the trench until we reached the large opening of the Giant Ice Cave.

Giant Ice Cave

Here’s the view looking back out from inside the darkness of the cave. Apparently, there can be temporary columns of ice in the winter and spring that grow to several feet in height, but I’m pretty sure we were too late to see that phenomenon since there was no ice in the cave today.

Here’s a photo of Diane leaving the cave for some scale.

Once we were out of the cave, it was time to get back through the Lava Trench.

We climbed back up to the rim and hiked back to the Jeep at the tailhead.

Since we wanted to get home this evening it was time to start the drive back. Our route home took us through Grants, Thoreau, Farmington, Hesperus and Durango. There we hopped on the Million Dollar Highway right after it had reopened from the Iron Horse Race. I don’t think we could have timed that any more perfectly!

After another week wandering the Colorado Plateau and Four Corners area I managed to put over 1,500 miles on my new Jeep, and they were all worth it! Home is where the heart is!

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