Walking across the arid New Mexico desert, the sand and shrubs give way to undulating greenish colored hills of shale, mudstone, and sandstone. These, in turn, lead to valleys of spires, hoodoos, and other bizarre rock formations created out of volcanic ash and sandstone topped by a limestone cap. Welcome to the Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah Wilderness Study Area! In a region where the landscape is fragile, life is even more so. But that's not to say it is impossible to find. In the ruts and deeper valleys of the mounds, you'll find plants that find a way to live off of the summer monsoon drenchings and the sparse run off water that flows through these channels during the remainder of the year.