This afternoon Sandy and I drove the Jemez Scenic Highway. It was scenic for Sandy, but for me I had both hands gripping the steering wheel and eyes fixed squarely on the road ahead. We did make many stops along the way, but eventually ended back here in Santa Fe.
Our first stop was Bandelier National Monument. This is another Pueblo site, but of a different nature. It is much smaller than the one at Pecos, and also a combination of the traditional adobe pueblo building and some significant cliff dwellings. The canyon floor dwellers and the cliff dwellers occupied their home at the same time and there is no evidence that they were of different cultures. They seemed to be the same tribe, just different neighborhoods. They farmed both up on top of the mesa that the canyon is carved into and on the canyon floor. This pueblo was abandoned about 100 years before the Spanish arrived. There is geologic evidence that what is now the Southwest was experiencing climate change at this time (becoming much drier for about 60 years). The peoples of this pueblo moved closer to the more reliable waters of the Pecos River.
Pueblo Foundations on the canyon floor
Pueblo foundations on the cliff walls
The canyon in which they built their lives.
About one million years ago a volcano ejected material more than 500 times greater than the Mount St. Helens eruption. Following the eruption the ground collapsed into the caldera. In the picture below, what looks like a large meadow is actually the giant caldera of that ancient volcano.
Other sights along the way
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