Bandelier National Monument, Oct. 8, 2009

Just 50 miles northwest of Santa Fe is the 50-square mile Bandelier National Monument on the Pajarito Plateau in the rugged canyon and mesa country of northern New Mexico. Remnants of an Ancestral Puebloan community established 7 or 8 centuries ago include pueblo and cliff dwellings.

Huge ash flows from the Valles Caldera eroded into the rugged canyon and mesa terrain that typifies the Bandelier area.

Ha! I got here first! There were no trails into the Frijoles Canyon until the mid-1930s when the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built one, along with trails, the visitor center, and a lodge.

Bandelier is unusual in that there are only three miles of public road within it 33,750 acres, but there are 70 miles of trails.

Ladders provide access to several cave dwellings along the Main Loop Trail. Stone homes once stood in front of many of these caves. Ancestral Pueblo people in and around Bandelier, like Pueblo ancestors elsewhere, were farmers who grew maize (corn), beans, and squash. They supplemented their diet with native plants and by hunting deer, rabbits, and other mammals and birds. Cotton was cultivated and woven into garments. The people made winter blankets ingeniously woven of yucca-fiber string twisted with turkey feathers or strips of rabbit skin.

Archeological surveys show at least 3,000 sites in Bandelier, but not all were inhabited at the same time. For generations these people lived in small, scattered settlements of perhaps one or two families. As the population grew, people began coming together in larger groups, and, by the mid-1200s, villages often included as many as 40 rooms.






The mountains, being of ash from the lava flows, are easily eroded by the wind and rain, thus producing a "swiss cheese" effect. This is a natural erosion. Kinda scary, huh??

From inside of one of the cave dwellings, you can see the remains of the village of Tyuonyi in Frijoles Canyon. The height of its development was in the 1400s. By the mid 1500s the people who lived there had moved on, settling into new homes in villages along the Rio Grande River.

This is a good picture of the cliff dwellings. Notice the double row of "holes" in the rock. These indicate a two story house, the holes from vegas or beams that once supported the floor/roof .