Bisti Badlands is a necropolis of sandstone temples and ziggurats and a maze of passageways painted with striated tinctures. It is arguably the finest community of badlands in the San Juan Basin of northwestern New Mexico.

Meander at whim amongst nature’s whimsy where your natural sense of balance and form is distorted. This loop hike visits hoodoos capped with plates of sandstone, egg-shaped boulders and enormous petrified logs. Wild colors, divergent textures, and organic, amorphous forms guarantee a mesmerizing day in this strange and fantastical sculpture garden.

In 1996, Congress combined the Bisti and De-Na-Zin Badlands to form the 45,000 acre Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness Area. Bis-tie translates from the Navajo, “a large area of shale hills.”

Geology: Bisti was once covered by an ancient inland sea that left a two-mile thick sedimentary layer. During the Late Cretaceous period 65 to 80 million years ago, this was a coastal swamp inhabited by dinosaurs and other prehistoric mammals. Biological pandemonium produced a prolific fossil record still interred in stone.

Red knolls are covered in burnt sienna and deep purple, shiny, clinking chips. The brittle shards were once clay soils baked in subterranean coal fires. Bone white, smooth and silky hummocks are eroding silt and clay. Glistening black coal deposits are the remains of buried forests and creatures. Orange sandstone blocks tumble off linear parapets.

Resistant sandstone layers are interbedded between strata of shale, mudstone, coal, and silt. Whimsical and downright strange weathered formations include sliver-thin sheets of sandstone precariously balancing on pin-head mudstone pinnacles. Massive chunks of stone oppress and protect their underlying pedestals.

Vegetation is almost entirely lacking today. However, five successive forests lined waterways and shoreline, including redwoods, pines, willows and palms. The ancient trees are immortalized in petrified wood fragments scattered all about. Indeed, they are everywhere. Please don’t let that be an excuse to carry away even the smallest piece. Bisti is prized for its robust collection of colossal fossilized logs. The hike outlined here visits the best of them.

Route: Alamo Wash and its many dry tributaries runs east to west, coming alongside Bisti’s South Trailhead. If you are content to stay quite near the main arroyo, navigation will not be an issue. However, many of the best formations are some distance from the drainageway. Be realistic about the nature of this labyrinthine place and the difficulty of precise navigation. I will give guidance to the locations of my favorite features, but I can’t promise you will find them. I’m confident whatever you find will be equally fantastic. The trip outlined here begins on the south side of Alamo Wash and bears east to the petrified logs. It then heads north before returning west on the north side of the wash. Alternatively, if you walk straight back from the fossil forest, it is about three miles via the subtle channel of the dry river.

Locate the BLM register on the east side of the trailhead, elevation 5,760 feet. The excellent map posted there deserves careful study. Wiggle through the fence gate and walk on a flat clay surface toward Two Red Hills. The landscape is somewhat uninviting at first; Bisti’s beauty must be discovered.

Aim for the right/south side of Two Red Hills and you will be there in a fast 0.7 mile. The best formations are along the edges of the broad drainage, clearly visible. Climb a few feet to get the lay of the land and for an introductory immersion into the Bisti experience. In this intricate and complex little section, sandstone is weathering into a field of hoodoos. A coal seam underlies and purple fragments are scattered uniformly on the surface.

Bisti is Earth’s best narcotic. The color pallet is an ombre screen with muted to vivid hues fading into each other.

Continue east and, at about 1.2 miles, drop into a broad drainage, the location of Mushroom City. Featured are low pillars balancing exotic shapes. For thousands of years thin table tops have protected their pedestals from eroding moisture. The elegant Bisti Odalisque reclines in Mushroom City sculpted from spheroidally weathered sandstone. Be sure to find her.

The sensational Cracked Eggs (+36° 16’ 2.67”, -108° 13’ 25.48”), are on a flat surface on the south side of Alamo Wash about two miles into the hike. Think of them as embryological hoodoos at rest in burrowed sand. I believe they are the most beautiful formations in the wilderness area.

Staying along the south edge of the wash, less than a mile past the egg boulders, come to a petrified log roughly 30-feet-long suspended in situ, eroding from a mudstone wall. There are many significant stone logs in this fossil forest region. One is famously 33-feet-long and two-feet-wide. Decipher growth rings in some of the glassy, opalized slices.

Our tour turns north following tributary openings. Go right of a tower capped with orange rock holding an abandoned Ferruginous hawk nest. Bisti is inhospitable to wildlife in general, but watch for oversized jack rabbits and ubiquitous ravens.

Soon you will come to the Subterranean Hoodoos noted on the map. Massive slabs of flat stepping stones are at ground level with their thin supporting towers underneath.

Walking west on the blue-dot route are a plethora of turrets hefting orange-brown sandstone boulders with softened edges. Dislodged blocks have tumbled in a pleasing and predictable manner.

If you go far enough north on the black-line route, you will come to the Bisti Wings region. Stone creatures are poised for launch. Pass through a field of petrified stumps.

The broad arc through the north side will take you by formations that are fascinating and plentiful. Scamper up short steep climbs to ridges and hillocks, jump across fissures and pits, finesse your way down skinny ravines, tunnel through hardened mud and pass lineups of low toadstools.

This area is a serious maze, so have a plan for finding your way back to the trailhead.

Traveling west, watch for a prominent banded monolith and turn south on the east side of it. Continue down a fence line and you will be aligned with Two Red Hills.

If you stay until dusk, the elongated shadows of marvelous stony creatures will begin marching across the desert. The repetition of rock suggests infinitude.

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Trail basics

Travel:

From Durango, drive west on U.S. Route 160 and turn left on Wildcat Canyon Road. Go south on La Plata Highway, which becomes New Mexico 170 at the state line. In Farmington, turn left on U.S. Route 64 and then right in 1.2 miles on Murry Drive, following a sign for the Bisti Highway. Bear right in another 0.9 mile on NM 371 at the Shell station. Driving south, continue past the Bisti Wilderness sign at mile marker 77. This leads to the north entrance which is an option for another day. Just before mile marker 70, 35.5 miles south of the Shell station, turn left at the Bisti sign onto San Juan CR 7297. The gravel road is suitable for two-wheel drive vehicles with decent clearance. In two miles, go left on County Road 7299. Turn right into a large, dirt parking lot in just under a mile. Allow 1 hour, 50 minutes from Durango. No facilities; carry all the water you will need.

Distance and Elevation Gain:

7 to 10 miles; 200 to 500 feet of climbing.

Time:

5 hours minimum.

Difficulty:

All off-trail; impossibly slimy when wet. Navigation challenging off the main wash. Landscape markers are subtle, so it is easy to get lost out there. No exposure, but watch the caves, tunnels, and fissures.

Maps:

Bisti Trading Post; Alamo Mesa West, NM 7.5 quads. For a larger map see: debravanwinegarden.blogspot.com