Bandelier Nat Monument

New Mexico Outdoor

Roughing It In Luxury-Abiquiu, New Mexico 505.901.7321

Bandelier National Monument (Pronounce American= Bandel-ear ..and the way the Swiss pronounce= Bon-dul-YEAH

Over 10,000 years ago, humans were hunting Frijoles Canyon for game and using it’s close confines for comfort. It’s fresh water supply, in Frijoles Creek important as well.

Shot from Bandelier Overlook on the Pajarito Plateau some 800 feet above the Canyon Bottom Many millenniums later, some 50 years before Columbus “discovered” the America’s …the Anasazi peoples (word from Navajo means ‘dreaded enemy’) …had already built and inhabited very advanced Pueblo civilizations in Frijoles Canyon and Chaco Canyon in New Mexico!

First..up to 800 years ago, they carved Cliff Dwellings (Above and Below)

Below, I’m standing in the very same cave dwelling picture above:

Gabriela on the Kiva entrance with the Jemez Mtns in the background:

You had to be in shape to make that climb (below)! In fact..their life expectancy was only 35 years:

These native peoples hunted, yes, but were more planters ..and grew crops down in the bottoms..but also up on the Plateau, 800 feet and a 1 ½ mile hike up and 1 ½ mile hike back down daily! Centuries later, and around the late 1400’s …they began building “apartments” on the bottoms:

..and at one point, the population here swelled to over 600. It was also a major trading post..where there would be a constant flow of other native peoples. These Ruins are classified as Prehistoric, because they had no written language, but they had great drawings and paintings:

After having inhabited this Frijoles Canyon for many centuries..suddenly..they disappeared! One theory not expounded was fire..this canyon was tight..and the thick underbrush and amazing confluence of Ponderosa Pine would turn it into an oven:

Gabriela pondered all this over an orange:

The Cochiti Pueblo to the South and out of the confluence of the Frijoles Canyon and the Rio Grande Canyon are the direct descendants of these peoples. One day in the 1800’s ..they led a Swiss archaeologist Adolph Bandelier to this site… hence it’s name today. It’s located on the South side of the Jemez Mtns and 10 miles South of Los Alamos ..and 50 miles from NMO! It’s NOT a hike..it’s a walk. The ladders to climb up to the main cave dwelling, challenging, none the less! Dan

Tsankawi Site at White Rock

In the 1400’s, Tsankawi was home to the Ancestral Tewa Pueblo people.

Today their descendents live in nearby San Ildefonso Pueblo.

The Ancestral Pueblo people built homes of volcanic rock and adobe (mud), cultivating fields in the open canyons below. Their daily lives of hard work and family left their mark on the land. Low stone walls, carved drawings in the rock faces, and fragments of utilitarian objects are important artifacts left by the Ancestral Pueblo people.

For the people of San Ildefonso Pueblo these sites represent much more than interesting glimpses into the past.

<--San Ildefonso down in the canyon now.

Although the present-day Pueblo people do not occupy Tsankawi on a daily basis, the site serves an important role in their spiritual lives and provides both tangible and intangible connections with traditions passed down through generations.