If you ever feel like doing seven hikes (with lots of variety) in a weekend, we have a plan for you!
We were coming up from Las Cruces after work on Friday, so to break up the drive, we stopped in Albuquerque for some food and beer. We chose Marble Brewery for our Friday night pit stop because they have live music, a cool vibe (with three different sitting areas), and always have a food truck on site. On the night we went, there was a Mexican food truck serving very large portions (like way more than we were able to eat) and an upbeat hippy/folk band playing. Our favorite beer here was the Kentucky Juleps, a quite refreshing and unique dark beer as a spinoff of the famous Kentucky Derby drink.
Marble Brewery
Beer flight at Marble Brewery with food truck
Live band at Marble Brewery
Marble Brewery
Beer flight at Marble Brewery with food truck
Live band at Marble Brewery
After enjoying our time at Marble, we finished our drive to Juniper Campground, our home for the night. This campground is conveniently located right off Highway 4, just through the entrance for Bandelier National Monument. You can’t make reservations, so we were lucky there was still a spot for us when we showed up at 11:00 p.m. Per their website, they rarely hit capacity, so you should usually be safe. There is a kiosk (that can take credit cards) on the right side of the road just before the entrance to the campground where you can pick your site, pay $12 per night, and print a receipt to post at your site.
From Juniper Campground, you can take Frey Trail to get to the Bandelier National Monument Visitor’s Center, but for the sake of time, we drove to the visitor center (because we already had an extensive list of hikes planned for this weekend). Bandelier requires you take shuttle buses into the park from 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m, so we rose early to beat the crowd and arrived at the visitor’s center via car around 7:30 a.m. When it’s closed early in the morning, they leave educational pamphlets and trail maps by the front door.
We recommend grabbing an educational pamphlet for the Main Loop Trail which starts behind the visitor’s center. Bring the pamphlet along on your hike because there are numbers to stop at along the trail and the pamphlet will give you some history about each spot. This main loop has several cool ruins to explore, including caves you can enter! If you take the long route with ladders (which we recommend) and the one-way, off-shoot trail to the Alcove House, the entire Main Loop Trail is about three miles. It took us 1.5 hours because we took it slow while reading the captions for each number on the trail and took the time to explore all the caves.
Bandelier National Monument
Caves created by the Ancestral Pueblo people
Caves in Tuff rock
Bandelier National Monument
Caves created by the Ancestral Pueblo people
Caves in Tuff rock
Painting preserved from the Ancestral Pueblo people
Adam in the Alcove House
Megan by an old Pueblo house
Painting preserved from the Ancestral Pueblo people
Adam in the Alcove House
Megan by an old Pueblo house
We also grabbed an educational pamphlet for the Falls Trail. On the opposite side of the parking lot from the visitor center is a footbridge. Go left after the footbridge for about 300 ft on a paved road and you’ll find the Falls Trail trailhead on the right. This trail also has several numbers posted, so you can read the pamphlet along the way to learn more about the interesting geology of this area. This is an out and back 2.5-mile trail that took us about an hour to complete. The turnaround spot is where the Upper Falls waterfall is, as the trail past this point has been destroyed. We would only recommend doing this trail if the water is high because otherwise the waterfall is lame. You can also see the Rio Grande in the distance from the turnaround point.
Upper Falls at the end of Falls Trail in Bandelier National Monument
Upper Falls at the end of Falls Trail in Bandelier National Monument
Our next stop was a satellite portion of Bandelier National Monument, the Tsankawi Section. From the visitor center, take Highway 4 north. You will go through two stop lights in the town of White Rock. You will go through a third stop light a little bit outside of town and find Tsankawi about 200 ft after the light on the right (see map below). We highly recommend a stop here; it’s a quick 1.5-mile trail that took us a little under an hour to hike, and there are some cool ruins including caves, trails, and petroglyphs from the Ancestral Pueblo people. This is another trail where you can take a pamphlet along to read about each number you come across. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find pamphlets on site, so we would recommend downloading something online prior to doing this hike to get the full educational experience. There are some pretty views of mesas and mountains in the distance during this hike.
Tsankawi Ruins Trail
View from inside a cave
On top of a mesa!
Tsankawi Ruins Trail
View from inside a cave
On top of a mesa!
Trails created by the Ancestral Pueblo people
Petroglyphs!
Map of Bandelier Visitor Center and Tsankawi Area
Trails created by the Ancestral Pueblo people
Petroglyphs!
Map of Bandelier Visitor Center and Tsankawi Area
There’s more to explore in Bandelier than what we did, but as I explained above, this weekend was about variety! We headed to the Jemez Mountain region just after noon for some hikes with a totally different feel- green mountains as opposed to desert ruins. The trail we started with, the Las Conchas Trail, was about a 30 minute drive east of the Bandelier Visitor Center. You’ll know you’re there after you take a swooping right turn around a cliff and immediately see rock climbers and a small bridge up ahead. It’s a 3.5 mile out and back trail that took us about 1.5 hours. It follows a stream most of the way and there are lots of good faces for rock climbing/hanging out. Just after the junction with the East Fork trail, if you keep going straight through a barbed wire fence and climb up the hill just ahead of you, you will find a small waterfall looking back just behind you. If you keep exploring a little further too, there’s a small pool after the waterfall. It’s not spectacular, but it’s a nice area to take a break and hang out for a bit.
Rock climbers in the Jemez Mountain Range
Small waterfall at the end of the Las Conchas Trail
Caught him taking a picture in the Jemez!
Rock climbers in the Jemez Mountain Range
Small waterfall at the end of the Las Conchas Trail
Caught him taking a picture in the Jemez!
Just about ten minutes further east on Highway 4, turning left into the Jemez Falls campground area, you can find a couple more cool, short trails in the Jemez Mountains. If you park in the Jemez Falls Trailhead day parking lot, you can get to two pretty sources of water: the Jemez Falls and the McCauley Hot Springs. It’s only about a 0.75 mile out and back hike to the Jemez Falls from the parking lot. It is a decent sized waterfall and there’s a vast area for hanging out by the falls where people picnic, slackline, etc. The McCauley Hot Springs Trail is a four mile out and back trail from the parking lot that we started around 3:30 p.m. We didn’t know it at the time, but there are lots of cool backcountry camping spots near the McCauley Hot Springs where we totally would have camped if we had known. When on the trail, you come to a fork- to the left is a lookout point, and to the right downhill the trail continues. There was a downed tree partially blocking the path when we went, so if it’s still there you’re going the correct way. The McCauley Hot Springs consist of two-to-three natural pools that are more warm than hot, but they were nice to hang out in for a bit, especially after a full day of hiking. Warning: There are little fish in these springs that will constantly nibble at your feet/legs if you’re not moving. Also, it’s not recommended that you put your head under water here.
Chilling at the top of Jemez Falls
Jemez Falls Trail
McCauley Hot Springs
Chilling at the top of Jemez Falls
Jemez Falls Trail
McCauley Hot Springs
After six hikes in one day, we decided it was time to find a campsite for the night. It was decided we’d try to hike Tent Rocks National Monument on Sunday morning, so we started driving the 1.5 hours to nearby campsites to snag a spot. Our naive selves did not reserve a campsite over Memorial Day Weekend (one of the most popular camping weekends of the year), so this is where our day gets interesting. We first tried Tetilla Peak Campground and found a “campground full” sign, so we went to the other side of Cochiti Lake to find that the US Army Corps of Engineers Campground was also full. By the way, both campgrounds are quite beautiful and would be great spots to camp, but they require reservations, especially on busy weekends. After making our rounds at the US Army Corps Campground, making sure that indeed all the sites were full, we found a person who recommended a casino campground about half an hour away. We didn’t have any other options, so off we went back down the freeway we had just driven up on. We stopped at the Black Mesa Casino, but unfortunately the campground in their parking lot is only for RVs, so we were turned away. At this point, we were desperate, so I went into the casino to ask the security guards for camping advice. They sent us even further south to the next town, Bernalillo, where there’s a KOA just off the freeway. I’ve seen signs for KOA’s frequently, but never utilized one. They are nice, convenient campgrounds for tents, RVs, or cabins right off the freeway. They are more of a convenience campground (not nature). All the tent sites were occupied at this KOA, but we found two open RV sites next to each other. We decided to pitch our tent on one of these sites and were so happy to finally be settled for the night. We opened our local bottle of wine and were enjoying it for about 30 minutes when suddenly a very large RV pulled up and the driver told us we needed to get out of his site. We didn’t think this was a big problem because there was an open site right next to it that we figured we could move to, but then just in the nick of time, another RV pulled in claiming his already reserved site. I had to do a little bit of sweet talking, but we ended up making a deal with one of the RV owners that we could pitch our tent behind his RV if we were gone by the time he woke up in the morning. Lesson learned: Reserve a campsite for anywhere on Memorial Day weekend.
It ended up working out well that we rose early Sunday to escape the KOA before anyone noticed we were there because there was already a line at the gate of the Tent Rocks National Monument when we arrived at 7:30 a.m. Gates open at 8:00 a.m and there was a mad dash to get to the hiking parking area. From the Trailhead Parking Area, you can do either the Cave Loop Trail, which is about a mile and easy, or the Slot Canyon Trail, which is about two miles out and back and more challenging, but very worth it if you are physically able! You start on the Cave Loop Trail to get to the Slot Canyon Trail and stay right – then when you return, you can complete the loop of the Cave Loop Trail to see it all. At the top of the Slot Canyon Trail, you get a beautiful view looking back at the canyon you just hiked up with cool tent rock formations. This was my favorite hike of the weekend because the formations are so unique!
Slot Canyon Trail
Tent Rocks National Monument
Can you see how tiny I look?
A beautiful maze!
Slot Canyon Trail
Tent Rocks National Monument
Can you see how tiny I look?
A beautiful maze!
After our final hike of the weekend, it was time to head back to Albuquerque for some food and beer. We stopped at a few unique destinations on our way such as: The Breaking Bad house (which an old couple lives in now and they sit in their garage watching people), Old Albuquerque Square (which looks like it’s still in the Wild West era), and a couple of unique houses in town. We then checked out La Cumbre Brewery which had some good lighter beers and a food truck for after a hike/bike. Our last stop before heading home was Green Jeans, a unique urban development made from box car industrial materials just off the highway. It had a cool, chill vibe and there was something for everyone there, including a Santa Fe Brewing taproom, an ice cream shop, a pizza place, some boutiques, and a kid’s zone.
Breaking Bad house in Albuquerque
Cool, spaceship house in Albuquerque
Breaking Bad house in Albuquerque
Cool, spaceship house in Albuquerque
Another unique house in Albuquerque
Green Jeans Urban hangout in Albuquerque
Another unique house in Albuquerque
Green Jeans Urban hangout in Albuquerque
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Ah you guys this sounds like the best weekend!! You were right where we grew up!! Bandilar was basically our backyard and we actually lived in White Rock for 3 years before moving to Los Alamos! But our dance studio growing up was in White Rock!! So glad you guys also did Jamez falls and the hot springs!! Thanks for the great updates and pictures!!
Oh cool, Laur! I had no idea you guys lived in White Rock as well. We drove through there several times and it seemed like a cool little town. Thanks for your recommendations. It was so fun to see where you and Adam grew up! We’ll have to return together sometime!
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