Bisti Sunset Wings

The Bisti Wilderness, located about 35 miles south of Farmington New Mexico, is an area of extraordinarily sculpted, erosional formations.

Once believed to be a coastal swamp of an inland sea, called the “Western Interior Seaway,” over the millennia, layers of coal, silt, shale and mudstone were deposited and later covered in a volcanic ash that’s been mixed with sandstone. The harder ash and sand layer, called the “Ojo Alamo Formation,” forms the caps for many of the hoodoos found here. Below that capping layer are the softer layers of the Fruitland Formation and the Kirtland Shale. The result for our time is a visually intriguing landscape that was not revealed until the end of the last glacial period. 

The Bisti Wings formation is located a significant distance from where visitors park. GPS coordinates are helpful in locating them among the myriad, shallow arroyos and low hills. To find them, we had to hike about two miles across the hot and shade-less landscape in late September of 2015. We arrived at a spot where we could photograph them just about sunset, a deliberately planned timing. In broad daylight, the ash-like rock and sandstone is an uninteresting grayish-white, but when the evening sun lends its light, the rock takes on a golden hue. Combine the glowing color with the unusual hoodoo winged shape and you have the recipe for a tantalizing photo. Processed as an HDR image with a softening effect.