Two National Sites

Yesterday we took a drive up in the Jemez Mountains to see two national preserves. They were only about 25 miles away, as the crow flies, but there are no paved roads directly there. We had to drive over 85 miles in a huge backwards “C” to get there.

First we drove up a steep and twisty road over a 9,000 foot pass and down into Valles Caldera National Preserve.

Most of the preserve is a huge alpine meadow that was created by a series of volcanic eruptions about a million years ago. We’re still at 8,500 feet and snow lingers here.

It is hard to grasp the size of the eruption that could make this 89,000 acre caldera. It’s estimated that the material ejected was 500 times greater than that spewed out in the May 1980 eruptions of Mt. St. Helens.

We tried to take a mile and a half hike around a the smallest of the hills formed from magma that leaked to the surface thousands of years after the eruptions, but the trail was covered with crusty snow.

Matey liked rolling in it, but didn’t do too well walking on it.

We drove down the one open road and Bud spotted this coyote, it stopped a minute and I got its picture.

We couldn’t get far, when we returned…

the coyote was still there. We saw it pounce on the snow and thought it caught something.

We then left the snowy caldera and drove about 11 miles and 2500 feet down…

to Bandolier National Monument. This is looking into the lower canyon of Rito de los Frijoles. (Interestingly I found a source who pointed out that the stream should be Riito de los Frijoles, Bean Stream; Rito means rite or ritual, so the name with one “i” as it’s now spelled means Bean Ritual.) There was no snow here and the temperature in the canyon was 15 degrees warmer than up on the meadow.

Whatever its name, the stream carved a canyon through hardened volcanic ash, called tuff. This is much softer than most rocks and erosion has created fantastic shapes.

The canyon is full of caves and the tuff lends itself to cutting and shaping.

So this beautiful valley with plenty of water…

has been a place of human habitation for thousands of years. This is a very large kiva.

There’s the remains of quite an extensive building.

You can see the outline of many rooms.

From above you can see its shape and size.

People also enlarged and shaped the natural caves. These modified caves are called cavates.

There were also structures built right up against the canyon walls.

This would be a cozy place in bad weather.

This is a very popular place.

Unfortunately, not all visitors are respectful.

That makes the canyon sad.

Besides all the interesting ruins,

just walking the trail was fascinating.

Up, down and around,

and past the strangest formations.

It is a beautiful place.

I’d love to live here myself,

and am very glad we got to visit.