The Cerro Pedernal as seen from the Youngsville, NM 

Cerro Pedernal – 9,862 feet

In the heart of the Jemez Mountains lies Cerro Pedernal. Pedernal means flint in Spanish, and this peak was aptly named. The volcanic process that created this butte left plenty of stone around the peak that is perfect for fashioning crude tools. Natives living nearby during the Pueblo Period (1203-1224 AD) used the rock around this mountain for arrowheads and other tools.

Cerro Pedernal is essentially a high, long butte created by a volcanic process. Viewed along its East-West line, it appears as a tall point rising out of the New Mexico desert, but viewed along its North-South vantage, its true shape is more apparent as a long ridge.

This mountain creates an inspiring vista among the high desert terrain around the Abiquiu/Youngsville/Coyote region of New Mexico. Deep reds, greens, and browns mark this area. Indeed, the famous artist Georgia O'Keeffe lived for a time in this area and painted Cerro Pedernal several times. She referred to Pedernal as her "favorite mountain." Click here for one of O'Keeffe's renditions of the peak. Click here for information about Georgia O'Keeffe.

In her book “Valley of Shining Stone” Lesley Poling-Kempes says “The Chama [river] provides the valley with the water that is its lifeblood.  But it is Cerro Pedernal, Tsee p’in to the Tewa (both names meaning “flint or flaking stone mountain”), that is the region’s heart, and perhaps the keeper of its spirit, too.

Pedernal has been a landmark on the physical and spiritual maps of a dozen cultures spanning a thousand years.  The Cerro’s flat, distinctively truncated head holds a familiar yet mythological posture on the New Mexican horizon for up to fifty miles in several directions.  From the north or south, Pedernal appears to be shaped like a long, flat knife; from the east and west, its narrow summit is a mere knob.  In reality it is both of these: Pedernal’s truncated neck is long and narrow, its summit an island of chert standing three thousand feet above the floor of the Valley of Shining Stone.”