Exploring New Mexico’s Hidden Badlands Near Farmington

We hike the Brook Badlands in New Mexico and get up close to hoodoos, caprock, and weirdly hollow sounding walls that make the landscape feel almost unreal. We also talk through how these formations erode and why being careful with your hands and feet matters as much as the view. 
• location and quick orientation near Councilor and Farmington 
• why the area feels unique and less marked than nearby badlands 
• hollow sounding rock, tall hoodoos, and toadstool shaped formations 
• how caprock and softer layers create hoodoos through erosion 
• wind, water, ice, and seasonal change as drivers of weathering 
• safety notes on fragile terrain, slipping risk, and not climbing formations 
• spotting caves, pockets, and collapse zones along the cliffs 
• moving to a new ridge to study rock layers and a “city” skyline formation 
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Transcript

Welcome To Brook Badlands

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, Craig the Natural Medic. I'm out here in New Mexico today. It is March the 29th, 2026. And we are at Brook Badlands, located close to Councilor New Mexico, south of Farmington. This is what it looks like. Rugged Badlands. I believe Georgia O'Keefe visited here back in the 30s and 40s as inspiration of some of her paintings. It's a really unique area. Not as well known or easy to get to, and certainly not marked as the Bistae or the Valley of Dreams, but pretty cool. If this is something you want to look at, follow along. Over off the side of the road here from where we started, there's some really cool looking formations over here. Trying to determine whether or not this is older than the other areas that are Badlands around here, or if it's younger. I don't know what you think. If you have an idea, let me know in the comments. Probably my guess is it's probably close to the same age. But the rock layers, of course, you know, they have to be a certain consistency and softness. And you have to have the right amount of elements for all that to look at all these cool hoodoos in front of us. So I walked up to below these tall hoodoos there. And wanted to look at these walls right here. It's interesting, you knock on them like that. Sounds hollow. It's crazy. But these hoodoos are over here. I'm on top of this little bench. The wash I was in is right down there. Followed it roughly from the vehicle, which is over around the corner here. Can't see it from here. There's a couple of hoodoos behind me. Hey, if you're enjoying this video, make sure to give it a thumbs up so it goes out to more people. And that would be great, and I would really appreciate that. Now back to the video. Which is cool. And there's definitely some to the front here. And a little pointy mountain hill structure up there. It's very cool. Man, this is very otherworldly. Not too different than the Alien Throne area. But unique enough that it's not that there's a bench area right there. I can just walk over, put ends right there, so I can't really get into those without going a different route, which I'll try to get up there to those. Looks like giant toadstools, so it's like a Super Mario-esque. There's definitely a wash right here where some of that capstone, which is up there, there's some capstone, that hard dark sandstone on top. Definitely more weather resistant than this. But it's caved in right here. So you have a recessed area on the cliff up there. I don't know that I would walk on that on the top of that. But uh wow, isn't this cool to be like right here underneath these little toadstools? Very neat. I'm gonna try to get over there, but it's gonna require both hands and probably some poles. See over there. Okay, I'm downstream basically. There's a little cave I was pointing at, and then there's some pieces of that. I don't know if that's mudstone or what that is, that white rock that kind of sounds hollow inside. Then you have that capstone, that darker sandstone on top of these hoodos. I think the main thing to remember with this is be careful where you put your hands. A lot of this stuff is pretty fragile, so you don't want to break it as you're going through there and damage formations or make yourself fall. So we're gonna head up that direction and see where we can see where we can get to. So you can certainly see how this is eroding right here. This is a capstone piece just sticking up, and there's some more right here beside it. That's that harder, more resistant sandstone as the underlayers kind of melt away with wind and water erosion, probably wind mostly. Some water, some ice, some snow, depending on the season. Now this little guy right here is a short little hoodoo. Kind of reminds me of a dragon head or some kind of creature poking its head out of the muck. You're on Dagobah in Star Wars, and some creature just wonders what you are and sticks his head up out of the swamp, and there he is. I'm right here underneath all these guys. The sun is beating down. There's where we walked in over here. There's the wash down there. Just to orient you where I am. Try to walk back in this little canyon right here and see what I can see back there. This is a fascinating place. As I said, gotta be careful, be cautious. Don't push on these formations or climb on them or anything like that. It's probably a bad idea because it might collapse and destroy something else that somebody could see. So don't do that. Alright, now behind those formations that we just saw. This guy's kind of interesting right here. Looks like a torch, a flower base. I'm not really sure what you would call it. Let's see if I can get it a little bit closer. I think that I can. And right behind these other two formations. It's a little bit of a tight squeeze here.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Not too tight. Okay.

New Ridge And Caprock Cliffs

The City Skyline Formations

Wrap Up And Next Adventures

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Yeah, it looks iffy on going over there. It looks pretty slippery. There's a lot of broken cap rock and other things down there. I don't want to tempt fate and spin off and go down into that hole. But it's a pretty good view of the torch, flower vase, whatever, and the backside of these two hoodos. Pretty neat. And then there's that fallen stuff over there from the top. I think generally what happens, as we discussed in other Badlands videos, is this softer layer is underneath. As you can see, it's eroding pretty rapidly. And as that erodes, that resistant layer on top pretty much has nothing to sit on and it falls. So you've got this guy right here, for example. Looks almost like a flowing waterfall. Eventually it's going to collapse, and that top layer is gonna come off. Alright, a little further behind those formations, there's a little cave area that's opened up. You can see sunlight coming in from the top up there in that crack. And then there's just lots of little pockets where this is weathering and eroding away. So crazy. Just for reference, the big hoodoos are right there. Underneath where I'm standing though, there is some collapsed little sinking areas. I don't think I'm gonna go any further over here and go back down. Okay, so again, big hoodoos are right there. All this stuff is pretty fragile, it's pretty soft underfoot, so watch your step if you're exploring up here. Like I said, I don't recommend climbing on the hoodoos themselves, they might be fragile. There's a couple places I put my hands going up into that canyon behind those, and some stuff collapsed. So I don't want to do that and fall down. But I think if I go down here, down to these big boulders, I can get to where candy is. We moved position over here to the other side of the ridge. We were over there on that side, a couple of miles away. But looks like there's a canyon or something past this tall point. See the tall point here. Looks like right over there's a canyon, so we're gonna go check that out. Alright, it's windy. Hopefully you can hear me. I thought just a little tip of that cliff was caprocked, but the whole line of the cliff has got that hard caprock on top. Down here a little lower. Pretty much can't go any further forward right here. We just got some fallen cap rock right here off of this cliff, I assume. And lots of it right up here, and then more this way. The vehicle is over that way. We're not too far from the vehicle. We may try to go over Candy's head right there and go to where that balanced rock is over there. If we can make it over that direction, at a dead end here. But this is some definitely cool rock layers. You can see distinct rock layers all the way. Got that hard cap rock on top, and then you can see the layers of sediment that built up and made the rock right in here. Now I don't know what they're called offhand, I'd have to do some research on that, but it looks pretty neat for sure. The easiest walking, of course, is in the wash. You can see some hoodoos developing. One of these days that'll be big giant hoodoos, but now they're squatty and short. And this big mound right here almost looks like a city skyline in the distance. Don't know how close we'll be able to get to it, but we're gonna try. But you've got like a balanced rock over here, and they got some like flatter towers. That's the east of that. Pretty neat. Getting closer to the city. Then over here there's some more hoodoos. Kind of similar to those ones saw earlier. Probably can follow this little pathway through the dark, get at least to the base of this cityscape over here. Take a look at these really cool hoodoos. Pretty neat. And this to me is fascinating. It just looks like a bunch of piled up mud. Which I guess is what it is. Anyway, get closer to the cityscape. Okay, I think I could go over these hills to get to the city. That's what I'm calling it the city. I don't know that a lot of the formations out here have a name. Not that I'm aware of at least. Could go that way, but I don't think I'm gonna go that way. I think I'm gonna go head back this way towards these hoodoos and see if I can go up on this ridge right here by that little pillar right behind that and see if I can go up behind those hoodoos maybe. Let's check it out. Okay, those hoodoos I was talking about right here. I'm standing up behind them. There's lots of cap rock up here on top of this ridge. Down there is very loose. So I'm looking at the city from over here. Pretty neat. We built this city. Okay, I'm downstream of the downstream is not really the best word, but we're gonna use it. And then the city's over there. That's what I'm calling it. I don't know if it's called the city, but as far as I'm concerned, this trip it's the city. The vehicle is over there, straight ahead across the wash. I'm not sure where Candy went. I'll find her. I'm gonna go down over these black hills and down over back to the truck. What'd you think about this video? It was a pretty cool adventure. Certainly won't be the last venture I take to the Librook Badlands. If you liked it, give it a thumbs up and consider subscribing to the channel so you don't miss further adventures. Pretty soon after this comes out, I'm gonna work on a first aid video, a custom first aid video as far as a kit is concerned. And we'll also talk about some kind of first aid myths. And later in coming up in May, I'll be doing an interview with a lady who did a hiking book. So make sure to subscribe so you don't miss all those. Questions, comments, leave those down below. If you're listening on the podcast, drop us a line, let us know what you're thinking. Till next time, we'll see you out on the trail. Okay, bye.