Zuni Salt Lake

Zuni Salt Lake is a maar, a crater lake set in the red earth of Catron County, and to the Zuni it is the home of Ma''l Oyattsik''i, the Salt Mother, whose brine is gathered on pilgrimage along established salt trails for ceremony. Hopi, Acoma and Laguna people also gather there, and Apache and Navajo claims are part of the lake''s story as well; the Sacred Land Film Project''s profile describes the surrounding 185,000-acre Sanctuary Area, with its shrines and burial grounds, as by tradition a neutral zone where members of various tribes may come together without conflict. The lake and 5,000 surrounding acres were returned to Zuni control in 1985.

The lake has been defended repeatedly and recently. Nearly two decades of Zuni opposition ended in 2003 when the Salt River Project relinquished the Fence Lake coal mine permits that would have strip-mined the mesa between mine and lake; the Zuni Indian Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act introduced in Congress in 2025 carries explicit protection for the lake and Sanctuary Area; and a USGS study published in 2025 maps the lake''s water and salt sources. It is a working ceremonial landscape, not a recreation site.

Visiting

There is no public visiting program. Contact the Pueblo of Zuni through ashiwi.org before considering any approach, and read the Sacred Land Film Project profile for the lake''s history. The land around the lake is a checkerboard of BLM, state and tribal parcels, with tribal sections closed.

Photo: [Netherzone, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zuni_Salt_Lake.jpg)