For the most part, I am only interested in hiking the highest 102 major New Mexico peaks, those peaks with a prominence of 300 feet and over, and all the minor peaks in between. There are 164 of them and I have 131. Peakery.com added 2 interesting lists, “The Santa Fe Classics” and “The Albuquerque Home Court Peaks.” I have hiked most of these peaks already, but there were a few I did not have, so I decided to hike them. The tallest of the 5 Albuquerque Volcanoes is Vulcan Volcano, so I decided to knock it off the list.

It was great to not have a far drive! I picked up my daughter Christina and her dog Bane. We drove to the far west mesa of Albuquerque, then parked west of the volcanoes in an area designated Open Space. There is a nice area to park, south-southwest of the 5 volcano bumps. We started hiking at 10:00. It was a cool overcast morning. Christina has done some peakbagging with me, hiking 12 peaks, but it has been awhile since she has. We first hiked J A Volcano east-southeast of the parking lot, then north to Black Volcano. There were some signs that said not to hike in a particular area because of restoration efforts, so we climbed the volcanoes from different directions. It took us 1 hour and 15 minutes to reach the top of the highest volcano, Vulcan Volcano. The distance we hiked was 1.6 miles. From Vulcan Volcano we hiked north to Bond Volcano, then Butte Volcano. It took us 4.5 miles to reach the farthest point from the car. Bane was really enjoying the hike. On the way back we found a very interesting cave to the east of Bond Volcano. The sun was starting to peak out from the clouds and we were glad it was such a cool day. The Albuquerque Volcanoes would be a great winter hike, the fall and spring would be nice too, but it would be a little hot for a sunny middle-of-the-day hike in the summer. We continued back east of Vulcan Volcano then back to the car. I was not expecting that it would have taken as far to hike as it did. We hiked 8.2 miles and had an up down elevation gain of 1036 feet. We dropped Bane back at Christina’s place, then ate at my favorite New Mexican food restaurant Los Cuates.