Bandelier National Monument: Cliff Dwellings

02Aug21

I broke up my visit to Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico in two distinct sections.

The first was obvious and well-known to me before I traveled there in June. The Main (Pueblo) Loop Trail is a short 1.4-mile jaunt that starts at the visitor center and leads through excavated archeological sites on the floor of Frijoles Canyon.

What I didn’t know about is a longer trip on the Falls Trail, a vastly different experience from what I explored early in the morning.

The archeological sites at Bandelier were inhabited for many centuries, many centuries ago by the Pueblo people. The park is named for Adolph F.A. Bandelier, a self-taught anthropologist and historian. In the 1880s, men from the Pueblo tribe guided Bandelier to their ancestral homes in Frijoles Canyon.

The site stayed fairly isolated until the 1930s when the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built a road into Frijoles Canyon. The CCC also constructed trails, a lodge, and a visitor center in the park.

It’s at the new visitor center and the main (Pueblo) Loop Trail where I began my journey into Bandelier. The first section the trail is pretty flat and is fairly easy to transverse. The trail takes you through several ruins of Puebloan structures including the Big Kiva, Tyuonyi, Talus House and Long House. 

While these structures are impressive as you walk through and around them, you get a better feel for just how impressive and big they must have been when you go on the second section of the trail, which is runs adjacent to the cliff dwellings.

Along this part of the trail, there are several ladders strategically placed where you can climb into cavates (small human-carved alcoves). The ladders are only a few rungs and easy to climb to get a look inside the cavates. 

There’s another structure, Alcove House, that you can tour. But an hour-long walk plus a 140-foot climb on four ladders didn’t appeal to me.

  Next week I will look at the journey down the Falls Trail at Bandelier National Monument.

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