Capulin Volcano National Monument

The Capulin Volcano National Monument is a National Monument in 1916 based in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of New Mexico, Union County. It is managed by the National Park Service and protects the area around the volcano of the same Capulin. It is located east of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains at the junction of the Rocky Mountains to the Great Plains - about 300 km north-east from Albuquerque ( New Mexico) and 350 km southeast of Denver ( Colorado).

When Capulin is an extinct cinder cone in the Raton - Clayton volcanic field, which originated about eight million years over a hotspot. The current shape was the volcano during the last eruption about 60,000 years ago, which lifted him up to around 400 meters over the surrounding plateau and today reached a peak altitude of 2494 m.

The Capulin one of the few volcanoes, for which there is public access to the crater. From the visitor center of the National Monuments performs a distance of three kilometers long, the volcano umrundende road to a parking area on the crater rim. From there, around the cone a 1.5 km long trail (trail ) with views of the snow-capped Sangre de Cristo Range, which forms an imposing backdrop behind the wide and crossed by volcanic hills plateau. Another path leads eventually up to 130 meters deep into the interior of Capulin.