The time came to head down the road to Albuquerque NM where we reserved a stay at Coronado Campground in Bernalillo NM. We love staying at this park with its charming casitas while visiting the greater Albuquerque area. We have several friends who live in the area and we also love all the culture New Mexico offers.
One place we enjoy hiking in Albuquerque is the Petrogyph National Monument. There are several great hikes to do within this park and we hiked two of them this time around. The monument is one of the largest petroglyph sites in North America, featuring designs and symbols carved onto volcanic rocks by Native Americans and Spanish settlers 400 to 700 years ago.
Petroglyph National Monument’s geology shows the remnants of volcanic eruptions which happened over 200,000 years ago. Basalt from these lava flows covered the sandstone of the Santa Fe Formation and as the softer sandstone eroded away, the basalt broke off and tumbled down the hillside. This resulted with the volcanic escarpment as it is today and is also where the Ancestral Pueblo People carved their petroglyphs.
We hiked the Piedras Marcadas Canyon Trail Length which is 1.8 miles round-trip on a unpaved sandy trail where there are as many as 400 petroglyphs to see. We also hiked the Rinconada Canyon Trail Length which is 2.2 miles long where we saw many petroglyphs as well.
The trails have posts with cables on them to keep visitors on the trail. The last time we hiked these trails there were no cables so we were able to get very near the petrogylphs. Now binoculars are needed to see many of them further off the trials.
Our favorite petroglyph is at the end of the Piedras Marcadas Canyon Trail. It is one featuring many hands on it. Another somewhat comical petroglyph we discovered this year was one encompassing some rock imperfections to make a face. Too funny…
We also walked over to the Coronado Historic Site which is adjacent to the Coronado Campground. The Coronado Historic Site and the ruins of Kuaua Pueblo are located about a 5 minute walk from the campground in Bernalillo.
It is said that in 1540, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado along with 500 soldiers and 2,000 Indigenous allies came somewhere near this site searching for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold. Instead of treasure, he found a dozen villages inhabited by prosperous native farmers.
Another place close by the campground is the Bosque Brewing Company. It is convenient to the campground and someone has created a makeshift way to scale the wall between the campground and the brewery making it very easy to get to it. Needless to say we scaled the wall (does that make us illegals?) and visited the brewery several times during our stay in Boquillas. It is well worth the visit to enjoy some great beers made there. Albuquerque never disappoints!
Such an interesting hike through history exploring the 'glyphs in the canyon. Gotta love the humor of using the rock features to create a face. Nice walk to the brewery, guess you need to earn that beer.
ReplyDeleteLove the pallets! Thanks for the tip about bringing binoculars to view the petroglyphs - never would have thought of it.
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