Sunday was our final full day and we visited Bandelier National Monument (~ an hour drive from Santa Fe). The park is open from dawn to dusk (visitor center opens at 9 am) and from May 15-October 15 visitors are required to take a shuttle bus from the White Rock visitor Center to access the main part of the park between 9 am and 3 pm. If arriving before 9 am you can drive into the park yourself, which is what we did. An early start meant we saw very few people in the morning. We hiked in Frijoles Canyon on the Main Loop Trail (1.2 mile loop) and added on the one mile round trip to Alcove House. This is a great hike - a lot to see in a short distance.

The Main Loop trail visits pueblo ruins and cavates carved into the tuff wall (nearby ancient volcanoes blanketed this area with ash and it compressed into tuff, which is a softer rock that can be carved). There is an inexpensive brochure you can purchase to bring along on the trail that points out the features such as Big Kiva, Tyuonyi, Talus House, and Long House. The coolest feature on this hike is that you can climb ladders into some of the cavates.

Half way through the Main Loop Trail there is a spur trail to Alcove House, once home to ~ 25 ancestral pueblo people. The alcove is 140 feet above the canyon floor and is accessed by four wooden ladders and stone stairs. In the alcove there is a reconstructed kiva and and viga holes (vigas were wooden beams used in traditional adobe architecture). Alcove House is definitely worth the detour - we really liked this spot (as long as you don’t mind heights and tall ladders!).

We enjoyed our walk back through the canyon to the visitor center. The bottom of the canyon was full of greenery and it actually reminded us of the northeast (bonus that we saw a doe and her cute fawns). We spent some time in the visitor center - they had really nice exhibits - and ate at the small cafe nearby. We had initially planned to hike the other ruins by White Rock, but between the heat and potential thunderstorms, we decided to go to Los Alamos instead.

We took the most direct route to Los Alamos, which happened to be a back entrance that required me to show an ID at the gate. Once in town, we had dessert at a cute tea shop called Fleur de Lys then went to the Bradbury Science Museum. The museum was great. It’s small, but packed full of information with its thorough exhibits on the Manhattan Project and our atomic history. There are also exhibits about current Los Alamos National Laboratory research in other topics. While at the museum (we were there for 2.5 hours) it started to rain, so we never got around to the second hike. But we did catch the views from White Rock Overlook and when we got back to Santa Fe, we visited the Cross of the Martyrs. We walked around Santa Fe Plaza and had dinner at Famous Plaza Cafe to cap off our day.