4 Wheels 4 Girls

Geez! So many strange, hard-to-pronounce names! El Malpais is a great monument where you can hike and see the remnants of an old volcano as well as the lava rock and little caves formed by the rock. The visitor center taught us a lot about the different volcanoes throughout the park and about the animals that live there.

We found this lizard, who has spines down its sides

After the visitor center and lunch, we went for a three mile hike into the volcano. On the way we saw lots of animal scat, which Ellie has been interested in learning about. 😀 We saw the poop of a coyote, a deer, a bunny, and maybe even a mountain lion. Also, we saw several caves formed by the lava rock crushing into the ground. It was really neat, and there was one called Bat Cave that Stella really wanted to explore (but no one is allowed).

This cave is actually part of a long lava tube

At the top of the volcano it was super cool ’cause you could look down into the volcano!

Behind my sisters is a lava trench, which is a collapsed lava tube

We hiked back down a mile and a half back to our RV, then left the park. It was a great day!