Activities ★

Bandelier National Monument

15 Entrance Rd, Los Alamos, New Mexico

Up the ladder into one of the cliff homes.
The canyon wall, pocked with dwellings the whole way along.
The long ladder up to the Alcove House.
Coming back out of a cliff dwelling.
Petroglyphs on the rock above the trail.
The visitor center, where the loop starts.

Human settlement here runs from roughly 11,000 years ago to about 1550 AD, and the part you came for is the cliff dwellings, homes the Ancestral Pueblo people carved straight into the soft volcanic tuff. Wooden ladders let you climb up and into them. The Main Loop in Frijoles Canyon is easy; the ladders are the memorable bit.

What it cost
About $25 a vehicle
Where
Open in Maps
Website
nps.gov/band

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