National Parks:
Bandelier National Monument

Los Alamos, New Mexico -- "It is the grandest thing I ever saw," proclaimed Adolph F. Bandelier as he stood at the rim of Frijoles (free-HOH-lace) Canyon in 1880. The grand thing to which he referred was the remains of dwellings of the area’s earlier inhabitants, the Ancestral Pueblo people. Today, hundreds of thousands of people a year visit these dwellings; and, descendents of the Ancestral Pueblo people live in nearby pueblo communities along the Rio Grande.

Located in north central New Mexico, Bandelier National Monument’s 32,737 acres encompasses a spectacular array of archeological, historic, and natural features. Today, 10,000 years after its first visitors appeared, Bandelier attracts more than 300,000 people each year.

Most visitors to the Monument experience prehistoric sites up close and personal in the Frijoles Canyon. Since the designation of some two-thirds of the park as a wilderness area nearly 30 years ago, visitors increasingly come for the joy of experiencing natural beauty and solitude in this pristine environment. The range of elevations in Bandelier provides habitat for a variety of birds and animals and hundreds of species of native plants. Depending on fortune, season, and time of day, one might see anything from a wild rose to a black bear, a tarantula hawk wasp, a canyon wren, or elk. Traces of the Ancestral Pueblo people are everywhere, including petroglyphs, crumbled structures, and bits of broken pottery. All these resource are protected and enveloped in the famous New Mexico light and weather.

The year 2006 marks the 90th anniversary of the establishment of Bandelier National Monument and the 100th anniversary of the 1906 Antiquities Act. Visitors will have the opportunity to enjoy numerous special activities planned in the park and the local community throughout 2006.

DID YOU KNOW

• In 1880, forty-year old Adolph Francis Bandelier came to fulfill a life-long dream of exploring the ancient sites of the Pueblo people. He was the first to study and report on the Ancestral Pueblo dwellings in Frijoles Canyon. In 1890, his novel, The Delight Makers, focused attention on the ancient people of the Pajarito Plateau. In 1916, the park was named for this extraordinary man.
• During the depression era of the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) helped expand visitor services in Frijoles Canyon. Today, Bandelier has the largest collection of CCC buildings and furnishings in the National Park Service.
• Evelyn Frey, "the lady of the canyon," came to Frijoles Canyon in 1925 to manage the visitor concession for the park. She lived in the canyon for 63 years, not only offering food and lodging, but also charming visitors with her connection to the canyon she loved so much.
• Bandelier National Monument contains approximately 23,000 acres of designated wilderness with more than 70 miles of hiking trails. Lush, narrow canyons alternate with sweeping mesa-top vistas in this challenging terrain. Elevations range from 5,000 to 10,000 feet.
• The geologic history of Bandelier National Monument has its origins in the eruptions of an ancient volcano. Two major eruptions, approximately 1.6 and 1.2 million years ago, produced volumes of ash 600 times greater than the 1980 eruption of Washington’s Mount Saint Helens.

DON'T MISS ATTRACTIONS

• Explore a new virtual exhibit of objects from Bandelier’s museum collection at www.cr.nps.gov/museum. With funding from an NPS Parks As Classrooms grant, these items were photographed, and the images are organized into four categories: Ancestral Pueblo period, recent Pueblo works, 1930s work of the CCC, and WPA art.
• Browse the visitor center’s bookstore and tour its museum, which currently features, exhibits about the Pueblo people in the 1400s and historic times.
• Join a park ranger-guided walk along the Main Loop Trail behind the visitor center to Tyuonyi (chew-OHN-yee) Pueblo and visualize what life was like here 700 years ago.
• Follow the Falls Trail downstream from the visitor center, passing two waterfalls, and view unusual geologic features, including a maar volcano.
• Become enchanted by Bandelier’s popular "Nightwalk." Once a week during the summer months, park rangers host the "Nightwalk," a unique experience highlighting the cultural history of the Pueblo people. To make your reservation, contact the visitor center at (505) 672-3861, extension 517.
• Enjoy expansive views of surrounding mountains and valleys from Tsankawi, a large unexcavated Ancestral Pueblo village located in a detached portion of the park, where you will also find numerous petroglyphs and cliffside homes.
• Enjoy and appreciate the talents of Native artisans at work. Every weekend from Memorial Day to Labor Day, a local traditional artist demonstrates his or her craft on the back porch of the visitor center. Many of these crafts date back centuries and have been handed down from generation to generation.
• Take a self-guided walking tour of the Bandelier CCC Historic District and enjoy its structures, intricate tin light fixtures, and fine wood carvings.
• Gaze 1000 feet down White Rock Canyon at the flowing Rio Grande. From the canyon overlook platform you can also look out over the vast panorama of the Jemez and Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the Española Valley, and the Caja del Rio.

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE PRIORITIES

• In November 2004, the project to repair the park’s entrance road was completed. This Federal Lands Highway project, administered and managed in cooperation with the National Park Service, was designed to provide a safe roadway and minimize impacts to visitors and Bandelier’s cultural and natural resources. The road was originally completed by the CCC in 1936 and the roadbed was coated with liquid asphalt in 1940. In the 1930s, the CCC also constructed the National Historic Landmark gutters to provide water drainage and protect the original road surface. The recently completed project removed over 50 years of asphalt build-up on the roadbed, while protecting over 7,000 feet of National Historic Landmark gutters located along the road, repaved and resurfaced the entire three miles of road, and resurfaced the visitor parking lot at a cost of $1.55 million.
• Funding has been requested to fully rehabilitate and protect Bandelier’s visitor center. The visitor center was constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the late 1930s. Today, this building serves as the entry point for more than 300,000 visitors to Bandelier National Monument and is a part of the CCC National Historic Landmark District. The infrastructure of the building is deteriorating and the original design was not created for such intensive use. Once completed, the rehabilitation will resolve all deferred maintenance and safety issues, allow full accessibility, and provide better resource protection of the historic structure and its artifacts. In addition, plans for a new exhibit design, the fabrication of new exhibits, and a new park film are underway.
• Bandelier is developing an ecological restoration plan to address severely altered vegetative ecosystem processes occurring in the park’s piñon-juniper woodland zone. Extensive livestock grazing prior to the early 1900s and continued fire suppression have resulted in unstable soils throughout the piñon-juniper woodlands of Bandelier. Increased soil erosion and surface water runoff have resulted in the “washing away” of some important archeological resources and the persistent and immediate threat to thousands more. The preservation of these cultural resources is in Bandelier’s implementing legislation and is integral to the Monument’s purpose.

VOLUNTEERISM AND PARTNERSHIPS

Bandelier National Monument presently hosts about a dozen volunteers from the surrounding area in the winter months, and more than twenty in the summer. Most of the volunteers assist at the visitor center, giving basic information and tours, answering phones, and issuing backcountry permits. Others work in the campgrounds as hosts, providing visitor information, maintaining facilities, and collecting fees. The Service appreciates the volunteers who are so vital to the park’s operations. Bandelier continues to work to expand its volunteer program. Volunteers are accepted from the public without regard to race, creed, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, or disability. For information about the National Park Service Volunteers-In-Parks Program (VIP), visit www.nps.gov/volunteer on the Web.

Community partnerships enable Bandelier to carry out its mission and enhance its ability to manage its resources. The park is located near the town of Los Alamos and shares boundaries with the US Department of Energy, the USDA Forest Service, and the Valles Caldera National Preserve. The park staff works closely with neighboring community organizations and federal, state, and tribal governments on many issues. Our partnerships include the sharing of resources such as equipment and personnel, shared biological and other monitoring programs, sharing of scientific data, and cooperative relationships such as shared law enforcement assistance. The Friends of Bandelier, Inc., a non-profit organization created by private citizens who care about the Monument, provides support to Bandelier for a wide variety of activities and services. For more information about the Friends of Bandelier, visit their website at www.friendsofbandelier.org. The Western National Parks Association, founded to aid and promote the educational and scientific activities of the National Park Service, operates Bandelier’s bookstore. Their web address is www.wnpa.org. Other park partners include the Getty Foundation, the National Park Foundation, the Museum of New Mexico, and other educational and environmental organizations that cooperate with the park to provide high quality educational, conservation, and scientific support.

Source: National Park Service