Today’ travels took us to Bandelier National Monument near Albuquerque, NM. It’s an area of over 33,000 acres of beautiful canyon and mesa country and there’s also evidence of human presence there going back over 11,000 years. There were petroglyphs, dwellings carved into the soft rock cliffs, and standing masonry walls paying tribute to the early days of a culture that still survives in the surrounding communities.
The Ancestral Pueblo people lived here and built homes carved from the volcanic tuff and they planted crops in the mesa top fields. The area is along the Rio Grande making life there a little bit easier. We walked along the Pueblo Loop Trail and saw the housing with ladders leading into their homes. We also took a side trail off of the main trail to visit the Alcove House which was home to about 25 Ancestral Pueblo people. You can read the Alcove House by taking a trail off the main loop trail and then continuing another mile through the forest until you reach the House The elevated site is now reached by 4 wooden ladders and a number of stone stairs. Once inside the alcove, there is a reconstructed kiva (for religious and ceremonial meetings) and niches of former homes. All we could think of while climbing the various ladders was how hard it would have been to carry supplies into the alcove!
Welcome relief 
Inside the Alcove House 
Me below 
Someone had to take pictures 
Kiva
We even saw a mule deer along the way.
Camping Konneys 