Hiking Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks in Santa Fe, NM

Private & Custom Tours Available

Includes entry to Kasha-Katuwe Monument, a gourmet pack lunch & wine tasting

Duration

6 Hours

Difficulty Rating ●●●○○ (1● = easy, 3● = moderate, 5● = difficult) We meet at Santa Fe’s Hotel St. Francis at 7:30AM and will return to the same location at 1:00PM

The Bureau of Land Management calls Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument a “remarkable outdoor laboratory” but we like to think of it more as a stunning recreational and geological observatory. Tent Rocks is known for water sculpted sandstone hoodoos (also called tent rocks), which are soft cliffsides that have been eroded by years of weather to form thin cone like spires and slot canyons that look like stretched taffy.

On this 3-mile round trip scenic hike, 25 miles south of Santa Fe, you’ll get to see these incredible tent rock formations with boulder caps, poised like hats, on tall columnar bodies of rock. Here, two different geologic processes formed the rock layers. It began with volcanic eruptions in the nearby Jemez Mountains 6.7 to 7 million years ago that formed igneous rock. This rock, also called “tuff” was a by-product of silvery-gray pumice and ash ejected from numerous vents that fell throughout the region.

Other eruptions threw out larger fragments of igneous rock called “rhyolite,” which ranges in color from light gray to red. Today, you can see these two types of rock together forming ethereal shapes and scenes and it has developed the multi-colored textured landscape that this region is famous for. These particularly otherworldly shapes and scenes, at Tent Rocks, were created in a micro-climate area where wind and water erosion gradually stripped away the sedimentary rocks’ sides.

After you climb about 650 feet up, going through slight one-person wide tunnels and oohing and ahhing over the slot canyon’s hoodoos and striated rock formations, you’ll reach the top’s dramatic views of the Sandia mountains, the Sangre de Cristo mountains and the Jemez mountain range. Afterwards, you’ll savor a delicious gourmet picnic lunch under a shaded canopy below these wonderful hoodoos and infamous New Mexican skies.

Upon the 45-minute drive back to Santa Fe, you’ll top of your hiking tour with an award-winning glass of Gruet sparkling or still wine from the Gruet tasting room in the historic Hotel St. Francis. New Mexico’s high elevation, sandy loam soils and sweeping winds naturally keep away pests and thin the canopy for greater flavors, thus it has meant this desert landscape provides the ideal breeding ground for Gruet’s vineyards. Offering vintage and non-vintage sparkling wine, as well as small lots of regionally available still wine, this will be a lovely way to toast your experience at Tent Rocks!

Have you always wanted to see some ethereal rock formations and wind your way through tall canyon walls? Well, this is your way to do it while on your trip to New Mexico! Book your trip today and we’ll take care of all of the details for your outdoor Tent Rocks adventure.

Hiking Terrain Elevation at 5,731 ft Slot Canyon Trail • 1.5 miles roundtrip Involves some climbing and narrow places between canyon walls. Trail switchbacks up 640 feet up to the plateau. Cave Loop • 1.2 miles optional add-on Hiking along designated trail following curve along upper edge of a side valley, crossing a view of sandy washes while staying fairly level.