Los Alamos, NM...volcanoes, valleys and mesas

Two little waterfalls at White Rock

White Rock Overlook

On Sunday, we drove to the White Rock, NM visitor center to begin our tour of the Los Alamos area. We found the nicest and most knowledgeable visitor guide on the planet, and she gave us lots of tips about all the best things to see and do. We started, at her recommendation, with the White Rock Overlook, a mere 2 or so miles from the visitor center. As it was Easter Sunday, we found a church service in progress at the overlook as we arrived. We stepped out from the parking lot and saw a beautiful valley below us carved by the Rio Grande River with steep cliffs of volcanic rock and tuff. There were also two tiny, but very pretty, waterfalls, one above the other. We stayed to gawk for a little while then drove through the streets of the little town on our way to the next tourist destination.

Valles Caldera

When we arrived at the Valles Caldera, a sign hinted that we may see elk herds running around in the vast open fields below us, but, alas, like so many other large animals on our trip, they hid. We did see the caldera, a big depression in the earth formed after explosive volcanic activity millions of years ago where the center of the volcano simply collapsed in on itself. The resulting geology is a giant meadow of some 89,000 acres with a few peaks here and there (lava domes), surrounded by a rim of the original volcano. It's pretty, but virtually impossible to see much of it at once except from the air.

Bandelier National Monument

Pueblo on canyon floor in foreground,
Volcanic tuff cliffs and caves in background

Next we headed to Bandelier National Monument, a spectacularly beautiful, but remote, park where Ancestral Puebloans lived between about 1200 and the mid 1500s. After a yummy lunch of green chile stew and red chile posole at the park's snack bar, we began our trek. (Ken is now searching for recipes to re-create these tasty dishes, much to my benefit.)

View from the Alcove

These people built an elaborate adobe pueblo, Tyuonyi, in the bottom of Frijoles Canyon. The building was one to two stories high with about 400 rooms, built in a circle around a large central plaza with only one entrance to the structure from the exterior.

One of many ladders we climbed

The tour led us next to high cliff dwellings built into the south-facing canyon walls. These walls, like the rest of the area, are made of tuff, a thousand feet of volcanic ash that was compacted over millions of years into a chalky rock. Wind and rain have a naturally carving effect on the soft rock, creating caves.

View of the Alcove...for perspective, look for the man
standing in the middle

Petroglyph of a person

The Puebloans built cliff dwellings into some of the larger caves and enlarged some of the smaller ones, called cavates. They built one and two-story stone rooms in front of some of the cavates. As we climbed ladders to reach the cavates, we were amazed at the scenery as well as the effort it required to reach these heights. The last set of ladders led us to a huge alcove where we could see the entire valley and where a kiva (a large round underground room used for spiritual and work purposes) was built. Everything was breathtaking, especially the altitude, at over 7000 feet. We even saw petroglyphs (rock carvings having specific spiritual meanings to the tribe) of a bird, a dancing man, and other things. So fascinating!

One of the finger mesas of Los Alamos

We headed back to the visitor center after our 2 1/2 mile walk, tired from the hike and the ladder climbing at that altitude, and drove to the city of Los Alamos, home of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The LANL is where the Manhattan Project and the Human Genome Project took place and where thousands of other scientific discoveries are made all the time. The entire area was heavily guarded and fenced, we even had to pass through a security checkpoint. We drove to the little "downtown" area and found almost everything closed, except the Starbucks and the grocery store, of course, because it was Easter Sunday. We decided to head back to Santa Fe and drove through some more fantastic scenery on our way.

Snow-capped mountains near Los Alamos

Once in Santa Fe, we quickly found the Second Street Brewing Company near the railyard, a great little area with a hike/bike trail and restaurants and shops along the railroad. We settled in for some tasty brews and onion rings at a picnic table in the setting afternoon sun. It was picturesque. And very relaxing.

We then retired to the tin can for a restful evening off our sore feet.