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Hoodoo Heaven: Hiking the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness

The Martian-like landscape of the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness in northwest New Mexico.
Andrew Gulliford
The Martian-like landscape of the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness in northwest New Mexico.

Just south of Farmington, New Mexico lies a Martian landscape, a world of weird rock formations, pinnacles, spires, and other forms. The Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness is a 45,000-acre wilderness of eroded badlands.

It’s the perfect place to get lost, says Fort Lewis College History Professor Andrew Gulliford. The wilderness area is little-visited; indeed many longtime Four Corners residents don't know it exists.

Gulliford adds that a visit to the Bisti is best on a relatively cool, sunny day. There, among the surreal sandstone and shale landscape, one might even encounter the ghost of the "Bisti Beast."

Gulliford reads his essay "Hoodoo Heaven: Hiking the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness" in another installment of our series Southwest Sampler.

In the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness.
Andrew Gulliford
In the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness.
Hikers in the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness.
Andrew Gulliford
Hikers in the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness.

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