The City Of Rocks State Park in New Mexico

Nov.23--To get to The City of Rocks we travelled to Demming New Mexico and headed north over 23 miles towards Silver city, on a 2-lane highway, over desert sand. Approaching the park entrance and cresting a hill the first view of the park could only be described as surreal. There in the middle of the desert were hundreds of large rocks which indeed resembled a large city.




The view that greeted us as we crested the hill--incredible!

It's like some medieval giant was playing chess with the rocks

The wind is constantly blowing here


The vertical rock pillars have shape and size rivaling those seen in Stone hedge. But,how did they get there? Geologists tell us that the formation was created by the eruption of a super volcano, some 1000 times greater than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helen's, that occurred 35 million years ago.


The pictures do not do justice to the actual size of these formations

Monolithic structure


Millions of years of erosion formed these structures
There were over a hundred campsites in the park

The magma produced by the explosion moved as a hot turbulent cloud and traveled as far as 2oo kilometers before depositing the volcanic material on what is now known as the City Of Rocks. The rock formations that we see today were created by erosion of the magma caused by wind, freeze-thaw action and the effects of vegetation over millions of years.



The campsites in the park have fire pits and picnic tables nestled between the rocks or in caves

A petrified dinosaur?--Just kidding!

A beautiful view of the desert and the distant mesa

This Park was 60 miles out of our way and we were glad we took the time to see it--a must see if you are down this way.