Jemez Springs & Bandelier National Monument

After our early morning Balloon Fiesta escapade, we decided to take a short detour drive back to our Santa Fe campsite. Yeah, turns out it wasn't as short a detour as we thought it would be. We headed north out of Albuquerque through Beranillo and up to Jemez Springs and on to the Los Alamos area. It's a pretty drive up State Highway 4, with some red rocks and high desert landscape, but I wouldn't go out of my way to drive it again. The two highlights on this road, which isn't saying much, are the Gilman Tunnels and Jémez Historic Site. Gilman Tunnels are just south of Jémez Springs are 4 miles west on Highway 485. The tunnels were blasted to make way for the railway that used to haul lumber, but has been in disuse since the 1920's and you can now drive through the tunnels, there are no existing railway lines anymore. Apparently the tunnels were also in the move 3.10 To Yuma; clearly we'll have to watch that one again. Jémez Historic Site is just north of the town of Jemez Springs is a New Mexico State historic site. It includes the stone ruins o fa 500 year old Indian village and the San José de los Jemez church, built in 1621-ish. The church was built by the Spanish who established a Catholic mission at the village. Short version, the mission failed after not too many years and local Indians moved down the road to current location of Jemez Pueblo. The highlight of our afternoon tour was ending at Bandelier National Monument, near Los Alamos. The monument was designated because of its cliff dwellings. [Full disclosure here: we did Mesa Verde National Park 7 years ago on our honeymoon trip and it is the benchmark for cliff dwellings. Mesa Verde has huge dwellings that you can access (mostly on ranger led tours) and is breathtakingly intact.] So, Bandelier...it's just south of Los Alamos and depending on the time of day, is only accessible by shuttle from the White Rock area. We lucked out and arrived after 3pm, when you can drive in to the visitors center. The cliff dwellings date back to 1200-1300's and were home to Ancestral Puebloans. The main hike from the visitors center is just 1.2 miles and takes you up along the dwellings on the cliff face. You can access the inside of some dwellings by short ladders. There were so many people as we hiked out that it was hard to get a good look without waiting in line. We came back through the opposite direction on our return hike, when it was later and far more enjoyable, as we had it all to ourselves. There are also remnants of a large circular community village on the canyon floor.
We opted to hike an additional mile to see The Alcove house. You reach the house by climbing 4 wooden ladders and stone stairs up 100+ft. Here's where we were a bit underwhelmed. After being to Mesa Verde were were expecting to see a more intact dwelling. What remains of Alcove House is a reconstructed kiva and visible niches of former homes. Again, don't get me wrong, Bandelier is very cool, but Mesa Verde wins the race for sheer volume and more complete ruins.

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