Bandelier National Monument

The people who lived at Bandelier were Ancestral Puebloans, farmers and builders who settled the Pajarito Plateau and Frijoles Canyon many centuries ago. They grew corn, beans, and squash on the canyon floor and mesa tops, carved homes into the soft cliffs, and built a great circular village, called Tyuonyi, on the valley floor, its rooms once rising several stories around a central plaza.

Their descendants are the Pueblo peoples of today, including the nearby Cochiti, San Ildefonso, and other Rio Grande Pueblos, who still hold this canyon sacred and maintain living ties to it. Bandelier is not an abandoned ruin so much as an ancestral home, and visitors are asked to move through it with the care and respect that living heritage deserves.

Along the base of the canyon's north wall, the Ancestral Puebloans carved out small rooms, called cavates, from the soft tuff and built masonry dwellings against the cliff, sometimes several stories high. The Main Loop Trail runs right beneath them, and wooden ladders let visitors climb up and step inside the carved rooms, where soot from ancient fires still darkens some of the ceilings.

The volcanic tuff, formed from ash blasted out in enormous eruptions of the Jemez volcano long ago, was soft enough to shape with stone tools yet firm enough to hold a room. The result is a cliff face honeycombed with human-made hollows, one of the most vivid places anywhere to imagine daily life in the ancestral Southwest.

Beyond the main loop, a trail continues up the canyon to Alcove House, a large natural recess high in the cliff that once held a village and a reconstructed ceremonial kiva. Reaching it means climbing a series of tall wooden ladders bolted to the rock, a steep and thrilling ascent that ends at a viewpoint far above the canyon floor, a climb best skipped by anyone uneasy with heights.

Bandelier is far larger than its famous canyon. More than seventy square miles of the Pajarito Plateau are protected as backcountry wilderness, laced with trails that climb to mesa tops, waterfalls, and remote ancestral sites. A visitor can spend an hour on the main loop or days in the backcountry, depending on how deep they want to go.

Frijoles Canyon runs with a clear stream shaded by cottonwoods and box elders, and it draws abundant life. Mule deer are common, Abert's squirrels with their tufted ears dart through the ponderosa pines, and elk, black bear, and mountain lion range the wider plateau. Birds fill the canyon, and in warm months the meadows bloom with wildflowers.

During the busy season, visitors reach the main canyon by shuttle from the town of White Rock rather than driving in, so it is worth checking the current arrangement before arriving. Spring and fall are the finest seasons, mild and clear, while summer brings heat and afternoon thunderstorms, and winter can close trails and ladders with snow and ice.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.