Dear Readers, I drove another piece of Route 66 in 2017, from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Tulsa, Oklahoma. We will continue our tour of the Mother Road with a short return hike in the amazing Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. Archaeologists have documented evidence of 4000 years of human habitation in the region. This implies a dependable water supply throughout the year. The Peublo de Cochiti people still inhabit the surrounding area. My trip was in July, the "monsoon" season in New Mexico, and the skies were amazing with towering thunderheads. Also, this time, I used black and white film instead of digital.
The Slot Canyon Trail is an easy way to get the feel of the desert, rock formations, and views. From a parking at about 5,200 ft altitude, you gradually ascend across dusty desert and enter a narrow slot canyon. You wind your way through the narrow canyon with vertical walls, and then ascend to the plateau at about 6,300 ft. The last part is steep but well-marked. The trail ends at an overlook of the Monument’s teepee (or tent) shaped rock formations.
As I wrote before, these teepees remind me of the cones of tuffa in Cappadocia, in central Anatolia (Turkey). Read more about the geology at the
New Mexico Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources.
The bent-over and weathered trees are especially interesting.
Late afternoon, and the lightning crackles in the distance, and the thunders rumbles. The signs warn you about flash floods. But the tourists were still coming in and heading to the slot canyon.
I took these photographs with my Yashica Electro 35CC camera (with 35mm f/1.8 Color-Yashinon lens) using Kodak BW400CN film. I scanned the negatives with a Plustek 7600i scanner. Note, in the 1970s, the word "color" was applied to all sorts of optics to demonstrate that they were so superior, you could use them for color film. Brilliant. Today, the marketers would use the word "digital" instead. Or maybe they would use "nano."
