Malpais

The panel's thousand years is too young by about four thousand. Cosmogenic dating of the rock puts the Carrizozo flow at roughly 5,000 years old, which still makes it one of the youngest lava flows in the lower forty-eight. It came from Little Black Peak, a low cone a few miles north of the highway, and what looks like one river of rock is many lobes that ran side by side down the valley, ending some fourteen miles short of the White Sands dunes. The Bureau of Land Management's Valley of Fires trail crosses it just west of town.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Malpais Valley of Fires Spanish explorers called this extensive lava flow malpais, or badlands. The river of lava that flowed down this "Valley of Fires" erupted from a volcano some 7 miles north of here about 1000 years ago. Extending through the valley for 44 miles, the malpais averages 3 miles in width. This ropy type of lava is called "pahoehoe."

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Smokey Bear Historical Park — 20 mi
  The small park in Capitan where the living Smokey Bear is buried, a cub found clinging to a burned tree in the Capitan Mountains in 1950, six years after the cartoon was invented.
• Three Rivers Petroglyph Site — 23 mi
  More than 21,000 petroglyphs on a basalt ridge above the Tularosa Basin, one of the few places in the Southwest set aside for its rock art alone, walked on a rough half-mile trail.

More markers nearby

• Carrizozo — 0.5 mi
• Carrizozo Woman's Club — 1.3 mi
• Carrizozo — 1.5 mi
• Carrizozo — 1.7 mi