Birdsong filled the canyon as we stepped into the cool of the morning. By arriving at dawn, my sister, Carol Harper, and I were beating both the crowds and the heat of the late July day, the former objective intensified by our recent escape from the summer hordes at Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park. A stop at Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos, New Mexico presented an appealing alternative on the way home to Oklahoma. Not exactly on the way, but close enough.

Adolph F. Bandelier, the legendary anthropologist of the Southwest for whom the monument is named, first visited this spot in 1880. He called Frijoles Canyon, where we were standing, “the grandest thing I ever saw,” extolling its magnificent growth of pines, oak and poplars, and the towering cliffs of tuff (rock formed from volcanic ash). Bandelier also found multi-storied ruins, often with plaster still on the walls. Today, the National Park Service protects this repository of pre-Columbian resources within 33,000 acres of canyons and mesas where evidence of human presence goes back more than 11,000 years. Petroglyphs, dwellings carved into the cliffs, and masonry walls attest to relatively recent occupation by Ancestral Pueblo people who lived here from approximately 1150 to 1550 A.D., carving homes from the volcanic tuff.

Hiking in Bandelier National Monument

Hiking trails total 70 miles at Bandelier, with most of the mileage in designated wilderness areas. Given our time constraints, we picked the 1.2-mile Main Loop Trail and added the 1-mile out-and-back trail to the Alcove House, then drove to the Tsankawi Ruins, located 12 miles from the main unit of the park, for another 1.5 miles of hiking before the day really warmed up.

There was no one else in sight at the Main Loop trailhead, located just behind the still-closed Visitor Center. An easy path took us past Big Kiva and through a series of maze-like stone walls, their purpose unclear at eye level. Soon we ascended to the canyon wall and, looking down, saw the walls assume the circular shape of the Tyuonyi pueblo, once two stories tall with more than 400 rooms.

The Long House ruin dominates the canyon, with multiple cavates, which are alcoves carved in the soft tuff by early inhabitants. Ladders lead up to several of these, which may be entered. The trail brushes against a masonry dwelling called Talus House, a 1920 reconstruction of a dwelling built of rock debris from the bottom of the canyon. Regularly spaced holes in the canyon walls indicate the location of vigas, or timbers, which supported the roofs of the original masonry structures.

The Long House continues down the canyon but the trail veers away from it and intersects with the route to Alcove House. The path here becomes shady and parallels a stream which evidently flooded at some time in the very recent past, from the huge piles of debris strewn about.

Alcove House was one of the park’s big attractions for me because of its height – 140 feet above the canyon floor – and the mechanism by which one reaches it – four wooden ladders. The ladders are actually quite stout and very securely fastened to the canyon wall. Stone stairs supplement the ladders in spots. Reaching the top after an exhilarating climb, we were surprised to find a young man taking a self-portrait near the reconstructed kiva, not having yet seen another soul in the park. It worked out well, as he took our photo in two niches which housed former inhabitants.

It’s theorized that the people who lived here had moved to pueblos along the Rio Grande by 1550 because the land here could no longer support them. The people of Cochiti Pueblo, located nearby along the Rio Grande, are believed to be the most direct descendants of those who inhabited Frijoles Canyon.

We returned to the parking lot, which was starting to swarm with people, and wasted no time driving to Tsankawi, which, by the empty parking lot, it appeared we had to ourselves. It’s a very different landscape from Frijoles Canyon, located on the Pajarito Plateau. This arid place of scrubby pinon-juniper vegetation was home to the Ancestral Tewa Pueblo people in the 1400s. Its name is a Tewa word meaning “village between two canyons at the clump of sharp, round cacti.” Their descendants today live in nearby San Ildefonso Pueblo. The ancient inhabitants built their homes of volcanic rock and adobe on this plateau, but cultivated crops in the fields below. The village atop the plateau contained about 275 ground-floor rooms but is, for the most part, unexcavated.

From the trailhead, just off a small parking area near the intersection of NM Road 4 and 502, the trail leads to a ladder, ascends to the plateau, then follows the rim, often in grooves worn into the soft tuff by the feet of both ancient people and recent visitors. From the top, the views are stunning but it’s difficult to grasp that you’re standing in the middle of an ancient village because so little is visible. A few stone walls provide hints, however, and numerous cavates and large petroglyph panels make for a rather exciting finale to the loop hike.

More visitors were arriving as we departed and our early start was validated yet again. For the hiker interested in Ancestral Puebloan ruins, Bandelier is worth a much longer visit, and there’s a much larger story to the history of the Ancestral Puebloan people. It is brilliantly examined and told by author Craig Childs in his book, House of Rain. See Books and Maps, below, for more resources.

Need to Know

Information

Entrance fee is $25 per vehicle. Visitors arriving at 9 a.m. or later must ride a shuttle from White Rock. Lodging and restaurants are available in nearby White Rock and Los Alamos. Camping is available in two campgrounds and backcountry camping is permitted. Wilderness permits are required and available at the visitor center for overnight stays. Water is not readily available on most backcountry trails. More information can be found here.

Best Time to Go

Spring and autumn are best, but visiting early on a summer day can yield a pleasant experience.

Getting There

Bandelier National Monument is located about an hour northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico. From Santa Fe, take Highway 84/285 north toward Los Alamos. After Pojoaque, merge right onto New Mexico 502. Continue up 502 toward Los Alamos. Bear right and exit onto New Mexico 4 toward White Rock. Continue for 12 miles, passing White Rock. Bandelier’s entrance is on the left.

Books and Maps

Ancient Ruins of the Southwest, by David Grant Noble is a guide to Ancestral Puebloan ruins across the Colorado Plateau and as far south as the Mexico border. Two other books tell deeper stories of Ancestral Puebloan history and culture: In Search of the Old Ones: Exploring the Anasazi World of the Southwest by David Roberts, and House of Rain, by Craig Childs.

In regards to maps, a Sky Terrain Trail Map for the area is available as well as the National Geographic map Trails Illustrated 209 Bandelier National Monument.

The Author

Susan Dragoo is a hiker, student of history, writer and photographer based in Norman, Oklahoma. See more of her work at susandragoo.com.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in Issue 39 of TrailGroove Magazine. You can read the original article here for additional photos and content.