Bisti Badlands, or Bisti Wilderness Area, is that kind of remote places where you can find something that yet waits to be explored.
Once in a while, I popped on shots of this place over Instagram. Well-known photographers visit it with the photography groups. And I decided, why not us.
Bisti Badlands is in the northwestern part of New Mexico, near Farmington. They could be combined in one trip with Shiprock or Canyon de Chelly, or Monument Valley. BLM land is open to everybody to explore and has the main paved and the net of the dirt access roads. I planned for the trip using this book. The author mentions quite a list of the coordinates of various locations. We weren’t able to locate a few, but while searched, bumped on something equally amazing. No matter what I read, every source divides the park into Northern and Southern parts based on the access route.
We visited the northern part. To reach, you need to drive a rough dirt road past the trading post. We parked a car on the edge of the wash and walked towards 36.2791667, -108.2375 coordinates I found in the book. I found this part of the park more interesting: colorful, less visited, filled with unusual forms and shapes.
The only problem we had is heavy clouds in the northwest. We were afraid to get under the rain with the car parked, not on the very hard ground. So we wrapped our exploration there and drove to the southern trailhead.
On the southern trailhead, we found a dozen parked cars, and it was way more lively there. After the quiet northern section, it felt like we returned closer to the town.
Here we aimed to the Cracked Eggs – 36.2672222,-108.2238888888889.
From there, we took east towards high bluffs where, after some exploration, found a group of hoodoos.
Sources I used to plan the trip.
- Photographing the Southwest: Volume 3 – Colorado/New Mexico (Photographing the Southwest) book was handy and full of needed information and photos. Most of the places we visited during So Colorado – New Mexico trip I read in that book.
- Americansouthwest.net is always a great source of information and maps.