by Steve
In our last post, we highlighted two of the sites that we recently visited near to Santa Fe--Pecos National Historic Park and La Cieneguilla Petroglyphs. In this post, we'll cover two other sites that should be on your "must do" list for Santa Fe.
We heard about a fairly new National Monument, Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks, that is located about 30 miles from Santa Fe. Designated a National Monument in 2001, it is still managed by the Bureau of Land Management and not the National Park Service. As such, it's a bit primitive. While there are pit toilets and picnic tables, there's no visitor center nor running water. Access is limited to the number of available parking spaces, which keeps it relatively uncrowded, but also may mean that you wait in line in your car at the entrance gate on a busy day. When a car leaves, another one is allowed in.
The term "Tent Rocks" refers to these tepee-like formations. The area is made of many, many layers of volcanic ash, some harder than others, and some with boulders randomly mixed in. Over the years, water has eroded the softer layers, but the boulders protect the pumice under them from rain, leaving these cone-shaped formations, most of which still have their capstone. We were told that these rock formations exist only two places in the world: at Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks near Santa Fe and in Turkey. For most Americans, the ones near Santa Fe will be easier to get to.
Millennia of erosion has left a deep and extraordinarily narrow slot canyon. In some places, it's only about one boot wide. Don't come here when rain is in the forecast, because there's no way to escape from a flash flood.
The trail through the slot canyon leads you to a steep climb up to the top of the mesa, where you get panoramic views of the slot canyon and the tent rocks.
Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks gets busy on weekends and in the summer time. If you go, plan to go early in the day, or mid-week. The trail guide says to allow for about 2 hours. We're pretty fast hikers, and we found that we needed more time than that. I'd allow for 3 hours. There's just so much to look at that you'll find yourself stopping quite often. Plus the narrowness of the slot canyon means a fair bit of "one-way" traffic.
The other site that we visited on this trip to Santa Fe is Bandelier National Monument. While Tent Rocks is a relatively new National Monument, Bandelier is one of the oldest, having been designated a monument in 1908. We had been there before on our last visit to Santa Fe, but we liked it so much that we decided to return. During the busy summer months, you can't drive your car into Bandelier. You can only get in by taking a bus from the Visitor Center in White Rock. This is due to limited parking space at the monument, and it adds a fair bit of travel time to your trip. In April, however, visitation is light enough that the buses are not running, and you can drive right in.
Here's Jane climbing into one of the carved out cliff caves.
Some of the caves are multi-room. As long as you're carving a dwelling out of the soft layer, you may as well connect as many rooms as you can.
I'd call this a room with a view. Of course, the kiva is built into the ground, so no view from there.
Bandelier makes for a nice day trip from Santa Fe. There's aren't too many places in the world where you can see these sorts of carved out cave/cliff dwellings, and this one is pretty easy to get to. Definitely add it to your list when visiting Santa Fe.
