Skywatch Friday – Exploring New Mexico’s Bandelier National Monument

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One day while we were in Santa Fe we ventured out to Bandelier National Monument which is only about an hour or so away. It is an huge and important archeological site. It has about 33,000 acres. A clovis spear point was found at the site and was dated 12,000 years ago. The Ancestral Puebloan people moved in about 1150 AD and left about 1550. The Spanish came to the area and found it empty in 1600. Twenty three current tribes trace their ancestry back to Bandelier.

This is an overlook while still on the mesa looking out over the area.

This is Park Service photo on Flickr that I am borrowing. I didn’t take a photo of the entrance monument. What kind of blogger am I?

There are a lot of trails at Bandelier but we took the “easy” one. Hey we are flatlanders from Oklahoma what can I say.

A very nice creek, “Frijoles Creek” runs through the area. In fairly recent past it was a year round creek. Not any longer because of climate change. They do have bears apparently. At least they are grizzlies.

Tyuonyi – A Kiva built mainly for storing food. At its peak it was two stories tall and had 400 rooms.

We ascended a higher trail that took us close to the cliffs. So you can get a better view of Tyuonyi. There are lots of cave like structures called Cavetes carved out of the rock. The rock was a soft volcanic tuff that could be carved with sharp sticks or stones.

Many of the Cavetes had structures out in front of the cave. Some of them were several stories tall. You can tell where the different stories were by looking at the rows of holes drilled into the tuff. Those anchored the support beams of the roofs and floors. That also explains why some of the pictographs and petrographs are high up on the canyon wall.

As we were going on along the trail I noticed a lot of etchings on the cliff walls. I do think that they are petroglyphs carved into the rock. The more we looked, the more we saw. The volcanic rock is pretty soft so a lot of detail was missing.

We could see spirals and human type figures and a lot of other designs. They were everywhere and some appeared to be superimposed.

And we saw at least two petrographs which is where pigment is applied to the rock. It was pretty cool.

It took us about two hours to do the three mile “easy trail” we were worn out. There were other places to go that involved climbs up rickety looking ladders. So we passed. Our appetites are wetted though for more sights to see there. Maybe in the fall or spring when the weather wasn’t so hot.

More information:

Park Service Monument Web Site

Information about Adolph Bandolier who explored and studied the site and wrote a few books about it.

A blog post from National Park Traveler about visiting.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Hiking the Trails in the Mountains above Santa Fe

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One of the things we did on our trip Santa Fe last month was going hiking. I asked a friend of mine who spends a lot of time there and hikes and he suggested the Dale Ball Trails. This is a public trail network of about 25 miles located right outside Santa Fe up in the mountains. So we decided to go do that. We weren’t going to do 25 miles, we went for 2.5 miles seeing how we are flatlanders Oklahoma where the elevation is about 400 ft compared to Santa Fe’s 7200 ft.

Heather near the start.

Son Logan who doesn’t really like hiking but is always up for anything.

The trail is very well marked and was in very good shape. Not very many technical areas at all.

Our merlin app was going crazy on all the birds here. There were the small extremely small and rude birds that hard to see and don’t sit still long enough to take a photo. So this is one of several photos I made of trees hoping that I could spot birds later. The laugh is on my because I can’t spot any birds in it.

Yucca cactus!! I’ve hiked a lot in Oklahoma and have yet to run across this cactus. I spend sometime growing up in Albuquerque, New Mexico and it was pretty popular there. Nobody could afford the cost watering grass so xeriscape landscaping (landscaping using plants and methods that require very little if any supplemental watering) was popular. Yucca plants were often planted underneath ground story windows as a security measure. If you have ever run into one of the “swords” of the plant you would understand.

Trail Shadows - Dale Boll Trails in Santa Fe

I’m not a forester but the trees I think were pinon pine and juniper.

More cactus, prickly pear.

Even though the trail is adjacent to houses and close to town you never really see the houses. Also the trail was not that steep. There was a climb at the start but afterward he wound around at the same elevation.

So anyway, almost 2.5 miles at a pretty slow pace. We were taking our time and I was taking lots of photos.

This is a screenshot from the Dale Ball Trails website showing the trails. I added the red showing our approximate route. The Dale Ball Trails has about 25 miles but their trails interconnect with other trails including forest service trails in the Santa Fe National Forest. I would hate to guess how many miles of trails are on the total network.

A good time was had by all but we crashed afterwards.

I am linking with Through My Lens.

ShadowShot Sunday – Hot, Hot, Hot edition

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I look at lots of blogs every week and in the northern Hemisphere many of them mention the heat. It is hot here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA also. We are always hot in the summer but there is something about this year that is making it worse.

I like to be outside and so I try and get out early and go hiking on shaded trails like the ones above and below.

I try to be careful. I take lots of water, I go slower, and hike shorter distances.

This is our backyard. We have lived here a long time and we have trees we planted as sapplings that are now huge. This one is on the east side of our backyard so it doesn’t really give us shade in the afternoon and it doesn’t allow enough sun to reach the yard so the grass is very sparse. We had our tree guy come out and trim it up quite a bit so things are better now.

I am linking with ShadowShot Sunday

Saturday’s Critters – On the Water and in the Backyard

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I went on a bike ride on the River Parks Trails along the Arkansas River here in Tulsa and took along my “good” camera.

I found this pod of American White Pelicans. I think a couple of them are sleeping.

I am thinking these are female mallard ducks but I am not sure. If I am wrong let me know!

I love Great Blue Herons. They are a bird that no matter where I go, I see them. And those pose beautifully for inept picture takers like me.

And a Great Egret snoozing away in the river. Google lens says this is an American White Pelican. I don’t think that is right!! Maybe AI’s takeover of the world is not going well.

And from the backyard. I love cardinals, so bright chirpy.

That’s it for this week. I am linking with Saturday’s Critters.

Skywatch Friday – Santa Fe and Jemez Mountains

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So like I said last week, while in Santa Fe we spent every evening at the rooftop pool and lounge. It was pretty popular especially at the end of the day.

So here are Heather and Logan on the rooftop. The clouds were just right and gave everyone a healthy pink look.

A view looking west.

And another view looking northwest.

And looking east, a reverse sunset.

And another midday view. The skies of Santa Fe are magical.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Shadows of New Mexico and Colorado

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Mornings in Santa Fe are always cool and shady.

A shadowy pedestrian bridge at Bandelier National Monument about an hour or so from Santa Fe.

Chimney Rock National Monument - Visitor Center

Shadows are welcome at the sunny Chimney Rock National Monument near Pagosa Springs, Colorado. The woman on the left is my wife.

Metate and Mano Set at Chimney Rock National Monument

A mano and a metate on display at Chimney Rock National Monument. The metate is the big rock and mano is the small one. These are used by the Ancestral Puebloan People to grind maize, nuts, and seeds into flour. This takes grinding labor into a whole new realm. Can you imagine the work that would be needed to make a meal? As a side note, these stones are found all over the southwest. My brother found one while we were hiking out in the desert of central Utah. I don’t know what happened to it. We moved a lot and these things are heavy. It probably got left near one of the houses we lived in. It’s not like you could throw it away and I don’t think most of them are worth much. Nowadays if I saw one on a hike I’d take a photo and leave it be.

I’m linking with Shadow Shot Sunday

Saturday’s Critters – Backyard Birds at the Feeder

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I love the Brown Thrashers that visit the camera feeder. They are such beautiful birds.

And we get lots of house sparrows. It’s not their fault they are non-native. I’m also non-native.

This poor bird looks a little strange because it is standing kind of close to the camera plus I think it’s just a teenager. I looked a little strange when I was a teenager as well. Of course some people I think I still look strange, but that is getting off topic.

I am linking to Saturdays’ Critters.

Skywatch Friday – Road Trip Skies and Santa Fe Sunsets

Late last month we took a vacation to Santa Fe and Pagosa Springs. We drove from Tulsa to Santa Fe. It’s not that bad of a drive. Almost all the route is Interstate 40.

I love road trips and road trips to the west are wonderful because of the big skies you see once you get past Oklahoma City and are on the Great Plains.

Lots of people think it is a boring drive. Not me! I love it.

Big storm brewing up in the mountains of Santa Fe.

Once we got to Santa Fe and checked into our hotel we found out it had a rooftop bar and swimming pool. We went to check it out when the sun was about to set. We went up there and there were a lot of people. They were not at the bar or in the swimming pool. They were looking at the sky.

Sunset over the Jemez Mountains in the distance.

And a reverse sunset looking south. You can see the New Mexico State Capital and the Sandia Mountains that overlook Albuquerque. I always forget that when one has real mountains, you can see them a long ways off.

And this is looking to the southeast. That storm brewing up that I showed you in the earlier photo. It is still there.

And looking to the southwest.

Back to the Jemez Mountains to the west.

To the northwest. Great skies everywhere you look. We went up to the rooftop every night of our stay. We never got tired of the view.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Through My Lens – Santa Fe’s Canyon Road Summer Walk

On our recent vacation to Santa Fe and other places, my wife Heather and I decided that by gosh we were going to check out the Canyon Road Art Galleries. So in the evening one day we ventured over there and we stumbled into the Canyon Road Summer Art Walk. It happens the first Wednesday of every month in the summer. The event even has its own web site.

The first thing we saw were these two women and a guy drumming their heart out in some sort of warrior pose. What a great introduction.