Fort Craig Rest Area

The San Mateo Mountains to the west are the wreckage of several volcanoes rather than one. Calderas collapsed there in turn, Mount Withington about 27.4 million years ago and Bear Trap Canyon about 24.4 million, with Nogal Canyon farther south, and their remnants rise past 10,000 feet at Vicks Peak. The San Andres on the southeast horizon belong to a west-tilted fault block 150 miles long, running north from El Paso, with Precambrian granite under as much as 8,500 feet of marine strata. Its eastern fault has moved within the last five thousand years.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Fort Craig Rest Area Fort Craig is on alluvial gravelly sands, derived from mountains to west. sloping toward Rio Grande to east. Magdalena Mountains to northwest and San Mateo Mountains to west are mainly thick piles of volcanic rocks. San Andres mountains on southeast horizon are of older limestones an shales. Elevation 4,810 feet.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge — 19 mi
  A Rio Grande refuge south of Socorro where cranes and geese winter by the tens of thousands on wetlands and fields kept by people, because the river no longer floods to make them.

More markers nearby

• Paraje de Fra Cristobal — steps away
• Espejo's Expedition — steps away
• Paraje De Fra Cristobal — steps away
• Women of the Camino Real — steps away