Bisti Badlands

Step back into history - say, 65 million years back - and get a feel for the ancient Navajoland vistas at Bisti Badlands Wilderness Area. The peculiar soft clay formations are spread over a vast moon-like valley, and some of the domes can literally erode before your eyes during the rainstorms of Navajoland summers. Within these opaque ridges of bizarre geologic beauty are scientific tales about the demise of dinosaurs and the ascent of mammals.

There are no signposts pointing the way to the Badlands from any nearby towns, but the usual approach route is along NM 371 from Farmington, the largest town in the Four Corners region - this heads due south through wide open prairie land at the east edge of the great Navajo Indian Reservation, which extends for 200 miles across into Arizona. After 36 miles, a gravel track exits east, opposite an historical marker recording the history of this area and of the nearby Bisti trading post, now derelict.