" Solo Camping in the Volcanic Badlands of New Mexico ¦ Ep 10 - 'The Land of Frozen Fire'

What's up y'all? Welcome back to Backcountry Benny. Today I'm in the volcanic badlands of New Mexico. I'll be traversing rugged landscapes and exploring miles of uncharted wilderness, building a camp, and trying to stay warm in freezing temperatures. The sun's going down soon and I've got a lot of ground to cover so let's get to it. That is a fall. Here's another one. I mean that's just that's like 200 feet down right there. That would be a very quick end to trip right there so I'm getting away from that as fast as I can. I don't know if you guys can see that out there but it looks like a giant fire. I'm not sure if it's natural or if some idiot has started a fire but either way you might want to keep an eye on that just in case. This right here is another real quick way to make a great trip a rough one. So I will be avoiding as many cactuses as possible and frankly there are a lot here. So not only are there obviously a lot of steep cliffs and cactuses and other interesting plants, this place has its fair share of deadly wildlife too. There's a giant rattlesnake population here. I believe it's the diamondback rattlesnakes and then the prairie rattlesnakes but there are also black bears, there are mountain lions, and this place even has the endangered Mexican wolf. So there's a lot of uh how should I word this there's just a lot of animals that can put your life at risk so my best bet is just trying to avoid them at all costs. I would love to see one from a distance and that's about it. So I feel like this is the best look that we've gotten today but all this black rock out here that it was once lava about 3,000 years ago was the most recent spill and it was just giant lava rivers as far as the eye could see flowing through this valley and these lava rivers would flow for 20 to 30 miles. You would think that it would be a desolate barren wasteland but interestingly enough the lava actually has giant caves underneath that hold tons and tons of water that allow all these trees and all this vegetation to grow. There are also giant caves out in that valley that are hundreds of feet long and sometimes like 40 to 50 feet high and there's hundreds if not thousands of those caves out there and they house all the animals in the region so mountain lions, bears will go down and take coverage there in the winter and probably the most scary of all for lack of better words is in some of the caves there are bat colonies of up to 150,000 bats so just wild. It's why you don't want to go down there in the first place. It is illegal right now to go down into the caves because like I said all the animals are hibernating but the fact that this happened you know not that long ago geographically speaking it's just it's unreal. My goal actually is to get down there a little bit that way I can basically break the wind and hopefully there's softer ground down there because if you can't tell this is all just stone so I'm going to traverse this area for a little bit longer and then hopefully find a way down but by the looks of it I am stuck on this cliff face for a good amount of time. All right so I found a pretty decent sized canyon that looks like it goes down I mean if there's even a 10 foot drop I'm not going to do it just because I'm not running the risk of coming out here and mangling myself. I'm going to see what we have in store and then make my decision. All right so this is probably the best look that I was going to get unfortunately I mean it's already pretty slick right here and I do not want to run the risk of not being able to get back up so with that being said I'm going to have to turn around again. I always say it's better to be safe than sorry. I guess we'll keep looking. All right guys it's looking bleak it's just about every time I go around another corner there is no chance of getting down to the valley so looks like I'm going to have to be sleeping up on the cliffs which honestly it's going to be windier but the views are going to be outstanding it'll all work out. With the rest of my time I think I'm going to try climbing this mountain right behind me. I'm already up in a good ways but I'm going to try to scale this thing and then watch the sunset and then going to cook dinner. All right that worked now let's just get up this way. It is really windy up here I don't know if guys can hear it but I'm going to try to split this little cavern and then hopefully find my way up. Again I'm not going to be making too many stupid decisions I mean to my right there's about a 150 foot fall and then on my left probably a 500-600 foot fall. All right this is it just look at that view just mountains and valleys as far as I can see it's amazing. It got up to about 70 today but it is going to get really cold tonight it's going to get down to about 32. I'm going to head back and then try to get everything set up so I can get nice and warm and then get started on dinner. See this is what I'm talking about right here this is the kind of thing where you cannot afford to slip. So I'm going to put the camera down real quick before I end up on the news. I feel like I'm in the middle of a like sicario scene this place is so cool. I mean it's just a live action painting. I probably should have done this before I set up my tent but it's fine. So when you're setting up in an area that has a high population of rattlesnakes you want to basically clear the area out and make sure that there are none in your immediate vicinity. With that being said I'm going to pick up some rocks and just hurl them into these bushes and see if we can make any noise or disturb anything. Nothing too crazy just some ramen that is so good. I truly mean it I mean when there when you get food out here like it could be as simple as ramen it is always so good. That's why you got to get out and camp as much as you can. All right guys it's about six o'clock and when I tell you these stars I mean they're it's something I've never seen before. I mean it is unreal. Like with the naked eye you can see I've already seen one shooting star. It's just it's otherworldly. I'll try to get some photos to put on the screen right now but this is just amazing. It's amazing. I'm just sitting here watching some college basketball and relaxing and I can hear a group of coyotes probably I don't know maybe two miles away. If they get any closer I'll try to get some footage of them. It's always the coolest thing hearing them. Anyways for the rest of the night I'm gonna watch some basketball maybe watch some YouTube and then I'm gonna be getting to bed. So otherwise good night and I will see you guys tomorrow. Peace. Good morning guys. It is currently about 7 a.m. It was pretty cold last night especially without the fire but I stayed warm enough to where I got probably eight hours of sleep but now I'm gonna get up and watch the sunrise real quick and then pack up and then get back to the car. All right guys that about does it for today's video. This was without a doubt one of the most unique places I've been to and I had an amazing time exploring. As always thank you guys so much for watching. The support has been great. You know if you if you enjoyed this video please make sure to like and subscribe. I'm gonna have a new video next week and it's gonna be a pretty good one so I will see you guys again in a couple of days. Peace.