Valley of Fires Recreation Area is a fee area, with fees charged for day-use or camping. Fees are fairly economical. The site has a really good bookstore and a shower house.
Note what the plants are doing. They thrive well here as aeoolian soils and water are held from going into the ground - they are suspended by the impervious basalt. Yet, the very imperviousness, with all the cracks, joints, fissures allows the plant roots to get in a break the basalt. And then there's freeze and thaw, baked surface temperatures in summer and snow and ice and wind and rain and also earth movements - this remains an active part of the Rio Grande Rift. The basalt being reduced to soil. And you're so lucky to be right here to see it at point-blank range. Pretty amazing!