After a quick breakfast of peanut butter and jelly, we headed to the nearby Ernst Tinaja trail for a hike. The trailhead was just down the road from us. We headed in and within minutes we had left the sun behind and were in a cool, shady canyon. We quickly came to the first tinaja which is a steep sided hole in a rock filled with water. If animals fall into them, they have a hard time getting back out and die there. The actual trail is quite short but you can go well beyond it. We climbed up and down over many boulders and saw several more of the watering holes. The rock formations were beautiful. You could clearly see that many of them had once been lava. We went as far as the terrain would allow then made our way back to the trailhead.
On our way back, we decided to do some exploring further down the road. We checked out the campsites and walked around the remains of some sort of ranch or settlement. While we were exploring, we ran into a husband and wife pair of park volunteers. We chatted with them a bit and they gave us some tips for some nice hikes to take in the park.
Tired and hungry by this point, we headed back to camp for lunch. Tacos never tasted so good.

Hike to Ernst Tinaja

Tinaja

Hike beyond