Sports & Outdoors
El Malpais National Monument
No admission feeA National Park Service monument in western New Mexico known for young lava flows, cinder cones, lava tubes, and sandstone bluffs.
Photo: Joel Mills, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped and resized.
SightseeingHistory BuffOutdoor Adventure
El Morro National Monument
Walk the Inscription Loop past centuries of carved names and petroglyphs, then climb to the Atsinna pueblo ruins.
NM Highway 53, 42 miles south of I-40 exit 81 at Grants · Ramah, NM
About El Morro National Monument
El Morro is a sandstone bluff with a pool at its base that made it a resting place for travelers for centuries. Along the Inscription Loop you read what they carved: Ancestral Puebloan petroglyphs, Spanish inscriptions including one left by Juan de Oñate in 1605, and the names of American pioneers and soldiers. The Headland Trail climbs to the mesa top and Atsinna, an ancestral pueblo built around 1275. The monument is also a certified International Dark Sky Park.
- #national monument
- #petroglyphs
- #historic inscriptions
- #pueblo ruins
- #hiking
Printable maps
What's around here?
The closest stops to El Morro National Monument, ordered by straight-line distance. A few more like it, plus some different kinds of fun so you can build a full day.
20 mi awaySwitch it up: Sports & Outdoors
- Sports & Outdoors
Bluewater Lake State Park
Check pricesA high-elevation New Mexico state park on a lake, offering camping, hiking, birding, horseback riding and fishing.
22 mi awaySwitch it up: Sports & Outdoors
- Sports & OutdoorsOutdoor Adventure
Ice Cave and Bandera Volcano
Under $25Self-guided trails to a lava-tube ice cave with year-round ice and a volcanic cinder cone near Grants, New Mexico.
29 mi awaySwitch it up: Sports & Outdoors
- SightseeingHistory Buff
Acoma Pueblo (Sky City)
$25–$50Join a guided tour of Sky City, an adobe pueblo and 1600s mission on top of a 365-foot sandstone mesa.
45 mi awayMore like this
- AttractionsFamily Favorite
Navajo Zoo
No admission feeA tribally run zoo in Window Rock showcasing native Southwest wildlife including wolves, bears, and golden eagles.
Transit: reachable by public transit
58 mi awaySwitch it up: Attractions
