Bisti badlands, Dreams and Wings

This was our second trip to our beloved Bisti Badlands in a couple of weeks.  But this one was our first adventure with a mix of kiddos from our two families.  Tori (Riki’s daughter) and Josey (Kelly’s son) are our youngest kids, and it was wonderful to finally get them together in the Wild. Although it was pretty blustery and overcast, the Bisti never fails to impress.  We visited two sites this trip, the better-known Valley of Dreams with its Alien Throne, and the nearby, but lesser-known, King of Wings area.

Kelly’s thoughts…

The Valley of Dreams is becoming better known, though the road in is still hard to find and bad.  This area has some of the greatest diversity for rockhounding with stones of all shapes, textures and colors.  There is wonderful petrified wood including entire tree-trunks and many colorful pieces.  The south side of the site is incredibly hoodoo rich with contrasting red, yellow, black, white and sandy-colored areas.  Some of my favorite colors are areas with contrasting mocha or coffee colors. 

One can find pot shards here and there, as well.  Clambering through this area is a joy of discovery.  The north side includes some of the fanciest hoodoos in the Bisti with the Alien Throne at center.  Rising by itself in the middle of a crazily-carved region, it is truly an unusual shape.  A dish-shaped seat adorns the top of a tall, broad pedestal with many holes carved through it.  It is very slender when viewed from the side.

After touring the Valley of Dreams, we drove around to the north and along an even worse road across the brushy plateau to near the rim of another badlands wash where we found the King of Wings.  The hike in is fascinating with abundant rockhounding and barren hillsides, though some are covered now with a green blanket of lichens of some kind.  Along the base of the lower hillsides we found abundant petrified wood, though in this area it is curiously dark black and grey and of many odd shapes, different from other areas of the Bisti.  The King of Wings is an amazingly fancy hoodoo on the top of a ridge.  A large, irregular base is topped with an elongate wing that extends even farther out into space than the width of the base.  From here there are many more hoodoos and unusual weathered areas to the east to explore.  A hike along the ridgeline above the site led us to a fantastic zone of hillside with abundant gypsum flowers (“gypsum roses,” “desert roses”).  These evaporite crystals develop in sandy areas where the crystalization incorporates sand.  This is the only place I have ever found these amazing crystal structures.

It’s a long drive out and back to the Bisti, and a lot of hiking and wind and sand while there.  It was such a wonderfully lovely adventure day for Riki and me as we shared experiences with our two youngest.

Riki’s thoughts…

It was wonderful to go back to the Valley of Dreams and the King of Wings, and taking Tori into the desert for the first time allowed me to see through her eyes what I saw the first time. She took to it like a mountain goat, scrambling around on the rocks, testing out her new boots. The cooler weather was a blessing, though the wind stirred up the sand a bit.

Tori commented that the Alien Throne did not really look much like a throne and wondered why it had gotten its name. The same thing was true for King of Wings. As a pilot in training, she noticed that the wing was not wing-shaped. I explained that technically the wing is a hoodoo whose base is not centered under the rock. The first time we were there, the Alien Throne inspired me so much that I decided to try sketching it. I have no idea why I decided to start with something so complex, and it is a sketch that is still in the works.

One of the larger wings near the King was no longer on its base, as it had been last time Kelly and I were there. That was just a few months ago. It made me realize how a single season of weathering can make major changes in the landscape. On the other hand, there is not too much that the weathering can do to the petrified wood that it has not already done. I love how the bigger logs tend to break into sections that look like cordwood cut to stove length. I also love when the logs end up on pedestals of soil, not unlike hoodoos.

When approaching the King of Wings, it starts out looking like you are taking a stroll across a pasture. After a while, you drop off the edge of the pasture, and end up in a place that looks like another world, a world with no plants. In the distance, Tori spotted a solitary wild horse, black with an appaloosa blanket across the hindquarters. It was taking us in until Elfie saw it (she would have spotted it, but it was already spotted. . .) She barked at it, and it took off running. In a few moments, it was out of sight, but while it ran away, it created a beautiful and iconic image that will last in our memories for quite a while.

Sharing the outing with our youngest children was beyond amazing. They are both troopers, and spending time with them makes us feel young again, until the next day. Then, we feel very much our age. But so do our dogs, especially Rango, whose ranging ways make him cover ten times more ground than the rest of us. He and Elfie spend the next few days after a trek asleep. Actually, that may be kind of a normal day for them, come to think of it.