Brian & Patty's Awesome Adventure!: Bandelier National Monument

On Thursday June 29th we drove to Bandelier National Monument. The sad thing is that although it is about 10 miles away from our campsite at Cochiti Lake "as the crow flies", as the road goes it is about 70 miles!

Bandelier National Monument

What is unique about Bandelier is that the cliff dwellings are accessible to the public via wooden ladders. Here are some ruins that are not up on the cliffs.

Indian Ruins

On the hill behind you can see holes in the wall that are the cliff dwellings.

Cliff Dwellings

This is the trail that leads you to the cliff dwellings.

Trail to the cliffs

They have signs telling you to stay on the trail and only enter the dwellings that have ladders leading to them. That was not a problem for us! :)

Stay on the trail

The trail led all over the rocks. You can see the steps in between the two rocks in the top right corner of the picture.

Trail

Here we are taking a selfie at one of the ladders. As you can see someone 'photo bombed' our photo! Lol!

Selfie at the ladders

Here are some people getting ready to climb one of the ladders to go in a dwelling.

People climbing ladders

Here I am getting ready to enter one of the dwellings.

Going in Cave

Patty said she took this picture to prove that I actually climbed up the cliff and then went up the ladder because I'm so acrophobic. I hope she doesn't use this against me when we go back home and put Christmas lights up.
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Brian in the Cave

Here is a shot of the lower ruins from on the cliffs.

Indian Village

Patty also went into the Caves, but she has no fear!!

Patty in the Cave

Here are some pictographs. The one on the right had a plexiglass sheet over it to protect it from weather and vandalism.

Pictographs

Continuing the loop we had to cross the stream. Last year there was a lot of flood damage here and the walking bridge was wiped out. This is what they have placed over the stream for now.

Plank Bridge

After crossing the "Bridge", the ecosystem changed completely from an arid dry New Mexico looking climate to a green Oregon looking trail. It was amazing the difference!

Looks like Oregon

On the 31st we left Cochiti and drove North to Raton Pass which is about 50 feet from the Colorado State line. We stayed at the Cedar Rail RV Park.

Cedar Rail RV Park

That afternoon it started clouding up. It was quite a beautiful scene.

Clouds

Then the skies opened up! It started raining and thunder and lightning! The rain turned into hail! Fortunately it was just pea size and did not cause any damage.