The
Howland Picture Pages: Bandelier National Monument The
Howland Picture Pages: Bandelier National MonumentPage by Royce
Last update: $Date: 2003/07/25 03:48:52 $ (UTC)
Bandelier National Monument is named for Adolph Bandelier, a 19th-century anthropologist. The monument is set in the Jemez Mountains near Los Alamos, was one of the great places we visited during our trip to New Mexico in November, 2002. The area is a combination of historic site and wilderness preserve, and we found it to be an impressive place in both respects.
In large part because of its archeological significance, the area was declared a national monument by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916. This was an act of preservation but also of politics and compromise between various interest groups. The paper "Bandelier National Monument: An Administrative History" makes for some interesting reading on the background of Bandelier's standing with U.S. government services and New Mexico interests dating back to the turn of the 20th century.
The historic aspect of the location revolves around the pueblo dwellings set near (and into) the red wall of Frijoles Canyon. The dwellings are an extensive system that the photos on this page simply can not do justice. These dwellings were built and occupied by ancestors of the Pueblo Indians between the late 12th century and middle of the 16th century.
The Jemez Mountains, including the cliffs of Frijoles Canyon, were formed in ancient times by a gigantic volcanic eruption and subsequent deposits of lava, ash and other materials. (The caldera of that volcano is now known as Valle Grande and is located to the northwest of Frijoles Canyon.) Cliffs made of the volcanic material, called tuff, were carved into homes by the people who settled Frijoles Canyon and other similar sites. Pueblos were also constructed of mud bricks, stones and wood, either free standing or outer rooms attached to those carved into the cliff face. Here at Frijoles Canyon, the pueblo reached three stories high. The highest room carved into the wall, Ceremonial Cave, is some 45 meters above the canyon floor, and would have been reached by ladder.
The Frijoles Canyon area, its associated creek, and the 400-room pueblo community called Tyuonyi were the site of farming, weaving, and pottery making for hundreds of years. Frijoles means "beans"; presumably the canyon got its name from one of the crops grown there. It is thought that over-population of this prime location eventually lead to famine and disease. In combination with natural events such as drought and flash floods, the inhabitants eventually were driven away to settlements along the Rio Grande river.
The wilderness aspect of Bandelier is much more recent, in an official sense within the national monument. Over 23,000 acres (about 70% of Bandelier's total area) was designated an official wilderness area in 1976. While Bandelier has less than 3 miles of road, it has 70 miles of trail system that wind through the terrain characterized by cliffs and canyons, streams, juniper and pinyon pine.
Wilderness preservation is a noted challenge in Bandelier. Wildfires in 1977 and 1996 burned nearly 40% of the area. The magnitude of the fires was enhanced by dense forest growth and other conditions directly related to many years of fire prevention efforts and other human influence on natural ecological processes. Other human impacts, some dating back for many decades, include considerable sole erosion damage that is likely resulting now from the grazing of livestock on the land prior to the formation of the national monument. And as with any such location, undoubtedly the many thousands of people who visit Bandelier each year inadvertently contribute to the degradation of the very qualities they have come to experience. In 2003 the U.S. National Park Service commenced restoration plans to begin to return Bandelier to a healthy, sustainable state.
We didn't see a lot of wildlife during our visit to Bandelier, mostly because we arrived at the wrong time of day, kept mainly to the Main Loop Trail, and didn't stay long over-all. Two of the more common birds we saw are featured on other pages on this site:
We also saw several Aberts, quirky tufted-ear grey squirrels. Unfortunately, I couldn't get any photos of them.
Resources where you can find out more:
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In this photo, taken the afternoon of November 6, 2002, we are looking down into Frijoles Canyon from an overlook at the side of the entry road. The cliff faces in the center appear up close in photos below.
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Here we are looking at a section of the wall early along the Main Loop Trail from the visitor center. The soft cliff face has worn away, opening up the rooms that would at one time have been completely enclosed within the cliff wall. Time and the elements have exposed these seemingly tiny spaces where people once lived.
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Not far along the Main Loop Trail, we find the Big Kiva. Kivas were ceremonial rooms set into the ground. This one is quite large, and is set away from the cliff dwellings as well as Tyuonyi, the free-standing pueblo.
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Speaking of Tyuonyi, it is the next major element of ruins that occurs along the Main Loop Trail. This shot encompasses nearly all of the 400 or so rooms that would have been present, most on the first-story level. In terms of scale, a pair of crows can be seen in the larger image, on the path to the left of the center. This shot was taken from the path running along the first set of cliff dwellings, looking back down to Tyuonyi on the canyon floor. Frijoles Creek runs through the trees behind Tyuonyi.
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This shot is from a little farther along the Main Loop Trail. The late afternoon light really picks out the red tones of the rock of the canyon face and floor. Just slightly above the larger cave openings, especially to the right, you can see a horizontal line of small holes. This is where wooden poles were socketed to form bracing and support the roof of pueblos that would have been built out from the face of the cliff.
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Among the first set of cliff dwellings is a cluster of jumbled formations, interposed between the cliff and the free-standing pueblo on the canyon floor. We don't know this to be so, but this particular outcropping looks like it was carved into a totem-like figure. Perhaps it was merely erosion that created him, but this weathering sentinel now stands look-out duty for the dwellings.
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Here is a reconstruction of one of the pueblo dwellings that would have run all along the cliff face. You can see the horizontal poles that support the structure at the top of each story. In places, the pueblo would have been three stories tall.
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At this point we are in shadow, but despite the lack of direct light you can see details of the ruins. The pueblo rooms were two deep right here. In terms of scale, we're not talking about much space. The room floors are perhaps 1.5 - 2 square meters. Again the horizontal row of holes is evident for the supporting roof poles. Two stories of pueblo were here, as shown by the two rows of larger holes. The cliff rock is a more ash-grey color, but you can see patches of reddish wash still remaining that would have been applied by the inhabitants. The black stain visible to the upper left is soot accumulated from fires inside the room.
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This character is just one of many petroglyphs visible along the Main Loop Trail. There are also pictographs in the area, although time and vandalism have damaged or destroyed them. One well-known, damaged pictograph (not shown on this page) along the trail is actually glassed over in situ to try to preserve it.
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Here we are past most of the cliff dwellings, and are back into the last stages of light. The red and green tones of the cliff wall meld almost seamlessly with the fall colors of the trees, all under the deep blue sky of the southwest.
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This bold cliff outcropping catches some of the last rays of sun. We are near the end of the Main Loop Trail.
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Another face of the cliff wall in the last light, near the end of the Main Loop Trail.
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Here is a look down Frijoles Creek as we return along the Main Loop Trail back towards the visitor center. In the dim light, now that the sun has gone down below the canyon wall, the leafless fall trees seem to linger like ghostly remnants of the community that flourished here hundreds of years before.
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