October 24, 2023: We did some hiking and climbing in Bandolier National Monument, checked out the Bradbury Science Center in Los Alamos, and explored the Turquoise Trail back to Albuquerque.
Bandelier’s rock formations are beautiful! Ancestral Pueblo people carved rooms, known today as cavates (CAVE-eights), into the tuff cliffs of the Pajarito Plateau. Over a thousand of these rooms are located in the walls of Frijoles Canyon.
Colorful rock formations are everywhere. If you look closely you can see small entrances to the cavates.
The oval shaped openings at the bottom of this rock formation are cavates that were once inhabited. Some are multi room homes with other cavates shooting off the entrance cave.
There is a photo of the inside of one of the dwellings. The ceilings/walls may be blackened from smoke fires for cooking or heating.
On the first part of our hike on the Main Loop Trail the ladders to access the caves were relatively short. There were no crowds so we could take our time to look around.
Peter in one of the cavate dwellings on the Main Loop shows the size.
Masonry structures were built in front of most cavates. Groups of these homes, cavate villages, were used by generation after generation of Ancestral Pueblo people. The remains of the village as viewed from one of the cavate dwellings. It was formed in a circular pattern. The circle to your right above the walkway was the Kiva; a large room used for spiritual ceremonies by male members of the Pueblo.
There are photos of a multi room caveat dwelling.
As you can see, the cavates were not very tall, but neither were the Pueblo people.
There were also petroglyphs on the outside walls of the cavates villages.
The trail splits to go to Alcove House. We had some concerns about the ladder height especially after seeing a sign on the trail on our approach.
There is a photo of Mary climbing up the last ladder. They only allow 15 people on this part of the trail at a time.
Peter climbed to the Alcove House too.
Once up there it was a large room with a Kiva to one side. It reminded us of a similar room in Mesa Verde National Park. It is thought that the same Pueblo people also might have inhabited both places.
Finally at the top in Alcove House with the walls of the Kiva behind us.
Then we drove through the mountains to Los Alamos (no photos permitted) and onto the Bradbury Sciences Museum. It is hands-on interactive and Smithsonian quality. It was a gem.
The museum was very informative about the Manhattan Project, and much, much more. This photo shows models of Little Boy and Fat Man bombs that were dropped on Japan to end WWII.
The museum also showcased Los Alamos scientific achievements. Peter explored some of magnets.
Mary got hands on instruction on how difficult it is to use protective gear while performing scientific experiments.
After the museum we took the Turquoise Trail back to Albuquerque and stopped in a view interesting places. One is called the Cerrillos Turquoise Mining Museum. It is run by a husband-wife team who mine their own mine, and several others and then make and sell jewelry from the mine. It was packed with mining memorabilia and totally fascinating.
They had rooms of turquoise unfinished and finished. I could have spent a day here poking around!