Petroglyph National Monument

Hi Blog! One of the things on our list of things to do in Albuquerque was to visit the Petroglyph National Monument. Petroglyph National Monument protects 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. Some may have been carved up to 2-3,000 years ago.

Here is Kathy in front of the Visitor's Center.

We watched a great video on the geology of the area. We learned that the Monument was created to protect the petroglyphs and related archeological sites on Albuquerque's West Mesa. It didn't take us long to realize why they needed protection.

We decided to explore Piedras Marcadas Canyon, which has the largest number of petroglyphs of any particular hiking area accessible to visitors.  That area has over 5,000 of the 20,000 that have been recorded in the Monument.

As we drove to the northernmost viewing area, the suburbs of Albuquerque have almost completely surrounded the 17 mile escarpment and mesa. Without a map, we would never have found the small trailhead parking area for Piedras Marcadas Canyon behind the Jiffy Lube.

It didn't take long to leave suburbia behind. Just a few hundred yards down the trail, we turned into a box canyon leaving the houses and barking dogs behind. It took a few minutes before we started seeing all the images. In this area, there are over 5,000 petroglyphs.

The spiral is a very common symbol:

No one knows for what all of the images represent. Different American Indian tribes have different versions of the meanings. For them, any one image can have complex or multiple meanings that depend upon placement of the images. There is also the possibility they could just be rock doodles.

Finding faces in the rocks is fun.

How many images can you see here?

The roadrunner looks like he is about to take off.

As we mentioned above, some images may be 2,000 to 3,000 years old. How cool is it to stand where ancient people once stood? It is so tempting to just reach out and trace the images. However, the oils from our hands can damage the artwork. Take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but shadows!

This guys is not having a good day.

This artist was able to use the bend in the rock and incorporate it in his image.

Seriously, I am thinking Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer!

High Fives all around!

We had over 60 photos from our outing. How do you choose? Here we went for mass quantities!

This little guy looks like he is about to dance off the rock.

This circle seems to reflect all the little green circles around it.

We can only guess that this rock took a tumble after the petroglyphs were added since there is no desert varnish on the broken section. You can see how deep the varnish penetrates. All that varnish has to be pecked and scratched away to reveal the lighter inner rock.

Having walked in and out of several box canyons, we found it was time to take the long walk back to the trailhead. You can almost imagine what it was like for the ancient peoples making their journey along the Albuquerque Mesa to meet up with their trading partners.

If you decide to visit the Monument, make sure you stop first at the Visitor Center and watch the video and get trail guides for each of the viewing areas.  While we explored one area in depth, there are four distinct regions in the Monument - 3 with petroglyphs and one that explores the volcanoes that formed the mesa and the boulders that gave rise to the petroglyphs.