Alien spacecraft in a Star Wars landscape? A surreal setting in the Land of Mordor from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings? Neither. These are stone wings in the Bisti Badlands, a little known desert region in north central New Mexico that’s about a 3-hour drive from Albuquerque.

Spread over approximately 4,000 acres, the landscape is covered with strange, eroded sandstone formations: hoodoos, pinnacles, ridges, arches, balanced rocks, rock wings and pedestals. And with no roads or marked trails, it’s all too easy to get lost here.

So if you visit, be sure to hire a professional Navaho guide who knows the area intmately. We recommend Kialo Winters of Navajo Tours USA. He’ll take you on sunrise and sunset treks to see the area’s highlights and recommend places to stay in nearby Farmington, New Mexico.