Two thousand signatures carved beside a waterhole

Imagine the relief of finding water after days of dusty travel. **A reliable
waterhole hidden at the base of a sandstone bluff** made El Morro — "the
headland" — a popular campsite for hundreds of years.

And people who stop somewhere for hundreds of years leave marks. **Ancestral
Puebloans, Spanish and American travellers carved over 2,000 signatures,
dates, messages and petroglyphs** into this rock. Not a monument anyone
intended to build: a guest book written by everyone who needed the same water,
across centuries and three cultures, on one wall.

Getting there

From Albuquerque, NM, or the east: Interstate 40 west to Grants, then
exit 81 and south on Highway 53 for 42 miles.

From Flagstaff, AZ, or the west: Interstate 40 east to Gallup, then **exit
20** and south on Highway 602 for about 31 miles. Turn east (left) onto
Highway 53; El Morro is 25 miles further.

The weather at 7,219 feet

The elevation — 7,219 feet (2,200 m) — is what sets the conditions here,
and it is higher than most visitors expect of New Mexico.

Winters are cold and snowy. Summers are warm, with **afternoon thunder showers
from mid-July through mid-September**, and **trails can close unexpectedly in
severe weather**.

Location: National Monument, New Mexico. Source: U.S. National Park Service.