BANDELIER NATIONAL MONUMENT

Just south of Los Alamos we entered Bandelier, another canyon full of ruins.

In 1880 men from Cochiti Pueblo guided Adolph Bandelier, a self taught Swiss anthropologist, down the walls of Frijoles canyon to the homes of their forefathers. We got a chance to see these homes today.

The carbon dating from fires in the canyon show that it has been inhabited for 10,000 years. Early hunter gatherers found reliable water, year round game and a wider variety of vegetation than the mesa tops.

The earliest dwellings were probably modified caves.
The very soft 'tufa' rock was easy to work and there were many hollows which could be used as starting points.



Later on additional rooms were built out from the cliffs and the rows of holes for the roof beams can be seen today, sometimes three stories high.








This room was the third level and has storage alcoves, windows, a fire pit and a smoke hole.
Some rooms were part of an extensive suite with connecting doors, others were so small that only a child could have used them.


Access below by ladder would have been the normal way in and out







but the agile would have used the rock ladders to make their way up to the mesa top.

Over time people built in many places in and around Frijoles canyon. Over 3,000 archaeological sites have been discovered in Bandelier National Monument.

The great house seems to have been the last to have been inhabited.
It is circular in form unlike the others we have seen which were rectangular. Only one of the three kivas built inside the great house has been excavated.




“Spiritually, our ancestors still live here at Bandelier. You see reminders of their presence here – their homes, their kivas, and their petroglyphs. As you walk in their footsteps, value the earth beneath you and show everything the same respect we do when we re-visit this sacred place.” First nation elders.


STEPS and MORE STEPS
Carol was wondering if there were many more steep sets of steps.





FIRE

On May 4, 2000, Bandelier National Monument fire management personnel ignited a prescribed burn, Upper Frijoles 1&5, which has become known as the Cerro Grande Prescribed Fire, near the summit of Cerro Grande. This prescribed fire was based upon a flawed plan and required fire management policies were not followed. This fire progressed without problems until on May 5 at approximately 1300 hours when slopover and spotting resulted in the burn boss declaring it a wildfire.

This tree was one of the many badly burned in that fire, but still alive.

DEER

As we walked out of the head of the canyon we came across this litle group of mule deer.



They were completely unworried by our presence.