Bandelier National Monument is located in north central New Mexico near the capital of Santa Fe. The park was established in 1916 as an archaeological preserve for pueblo ruins dating from the 1100s AD. Only a small area of the 32,000-acre park is developed. The remainder is a lonely and wild backcountry. Much of the park is included in the National Wilderness Preservation System. It is a beautiful land of high, level mesas cut by straight-walled canyons, some over 500 feet deep. Within this rugged landscape are the remains of a thriving culture that populated the area between approximately 1150 and 1550. Cultural resources range in size from small field houses and house block of a few rooms to large pueblos of several hundred rooms.

Management at Bandelier concentrates on protecting and interpreting the ancient cultural remains and the landscape itself. Rangers offer a wide range of interpretive activities at the Visitor Center. During the summer, artisans from local pueblos demonstrate the ancient crafts of the pueblo peoples.

Further details concerning Bandelier are available at the National Park Service website.

Bandelier has links on facebook, twitter, flickr, and youtube. Check them out!

• www.facebook.com/bandeliernps
• www.twitter.com/bandeliernps
• flickr.com/bandeliernps
• youtube.com/bandeliernps

Thanks to the efforts of wildlife biologist Stephen Fettig, Bandelier is becoming a destination for birders, especially in autumn when birds migrate though the high-mountain passes of the Jemez Mountains. Birders may also be interested in New Mexico's famous bird sanctuary, the Bosque del Apache. http://www.fws.gov/southwest/refuges/newmex/bosque/ and its Friends group, http://www.friendsofthebosque.org/.

Bandelier's nearest neighbor is the Valles Caldera National Preserve, located in a world-class volcanic crater: http://www.nps.gov/VALL/index.htm and its Friends group, http://www.losamigosdevallescaldera.org. Both have scheduled activities. Surrounding both areas is the Santa Fe National Forest, http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/sfe/, which has camping, hiking, fishing, and hunting information.