Bandelier National Monument

Bandelier National Monument in northern New Mexico protects approximately 33,000 acres of mesa and canyon wilderness in the Pajarito Plateau, including one of the most accessible collections of ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings in the American Southwest. The heart of the monument is Frijoles Canyon, where Frijoles Creek carved a lush riparian corridor into the volcanic tuff mesa. Along the canyon walls, carved and naturally formed cavates — rooms hollowed from the soft tuff stone — shelter the remains of an ancestral Pueblo community that thrived from roughly 1150 to 1550 CE. The Main Loop Trail (1.2 miles) leads visitors past Tyuonyi, a large circular pueblo ruin on the canyon floor that once stood two or three stories high, and continues to the cavate rooms along the cliff face. Wooden ladders climb to Long House, a row of plaster-lined rooms tucked into a 600-foot wall of tuff. The adventurous can continue to Alcove House (formerly Ceremonial Cave), 140 feet above the canyon floor reached by four wooden ladders — one of the most thrilling short hikes in the monument. The visitor center museum displays pottery, jewelry, and tools excavated from the canyon and explains 10,000 years of human habitation on the plateau. Outside Frijoles Canyon, the monument's backcountry encompasses waterfalls, mesa-top ruins, and the Tsankawi Detached Unit near White Rock, which offers a separate, uncrowded petroglyph trail with far fewer visitors. From May through October, private vehicles are prohibited in Frijoles Canyon and mandatory shuttle buses ($2 per person) run from the White Rock Visitor Center on NM-4. The monument is 40 miles west of Santa Fe, New Mexico.