Taking the Kids: Outdoors during national parks week
One crisp March morning, we walk the monument's famous Main Loop Trail Road past the remains of that Tyonyi to the ancient cliff dwellings. Make sure to pick up an age-appropriate Junior Ranger booklet (or download one before you arrive.) Learn how the ancestral people used the indigenous rocks. (The cliffs you see here are Tuff, a soft pinkish tan rock formed from volcanic ash flow. Because it is soft, it could be shaped with hand tools and carved to create houses in the cliffs and made into blocks for the circular village.) Take your pick of all-day hikes or one that will last just an hour.
Younger kids are tasked with going to the native plant garden outside the visitors' center and writing or drawing some of their uses -- Yucca, for example, was used to treat minor skin injuries, as well as to make rope.
The petroglyphs are amazing -- a turkey here, a face there, one that looks like an alien -- there are nearly 1,000, Budileni says. Archaeologists believe the ancestral pueblo people are descended from groups of hunters and gatherers who came here more than 10,000 years ago; they lived here roughly between the 1100s and 1500s. The park museum is a good place to learn more before you head out into the park. No one really knows why these indigenous people left the area. There was no sign of any disaster, said Chris Judson, the monument's educational coordinator.
Here, like at other national parks and monuments, there are special activities all year -- an "off-the-beaten path" hike in May, a Night Ski Fiesta the first weekend in June, even the chance to restore a pueblo wall with Bandelier's Historic Preservation Crew. There are special activities several times a month.
When Bandelier was established in 1916, the law said it was to preserve the relics of a vanished people." Today, of course, we know they didn't vanish. Their descendants live nearby -- in six present-day pueblos.
The Main Loop Trail from the visitors' center is just about 1.2 miles round trip -- the first portion accessible to wheelchairs and strollers. An additional mile-long, round-trip trail takes you to Alcove House, a group of dwellings built into the cliff 140 feet above the canyon floor.
Ready to climb up? What do you see?
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(For more Taking the Kids, visit www.takingthekids.com and also follow "taking the kids" on www.twitter.com, where Eileen Ogintz welcomes your questions and comments. Read her New Mexico trip diaries at www.takingthekids.com and look for her Kid’s Guides to major American Cities.)
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