October Trip 2.3: [Los Alamos] Valles Caldera, Bandelier, Science Museum

We spent the whole of Saturday, Oct 9, exploring the high region of Los Alamos. First we went to Valles Caldera and then to Bandelier National Monument Park. We ended our visits with a trip to the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos and the Bathtub Row.

Mom and Aunty LaiWan prepared breakfast and also packed lunch for our day’s trip. For breakfast, it was breakfast burrito, a variation of the burrito that I haven’t tried in California yet. In California we have burritos with beans or rice in them, whereas these breakfast burritos have meat, potatoes etc. No rice or beans. Also, I had more avocados in Aunty LaiWan’s over two days than I have had in my whole life. Hahaha.

The Valles Caldera is a wide plain that was formed after two huge volcanic eruptions (both much more powerful than the St. Helens eruption) blasted tons of ash and what-have-you into the region. Apparently the crater collapsed and after many years of precipitation, sedimentation, you have the plains now that stretched out far. The whole region was an active pot of many minor volcanic activities, though those two volcanic eruptions had huge impacts. Native Indians have been using the Valles Caldera as hunting grounds for years too, and we saw a herd of 20+ elks grazing in the Valles Caldera.

Pretty cool. Since young I have read about this huge crater formed by a meteorite slamming into Earth, and this crater is in Arizona. Well, I didn’t see that crater, but today I saw the remnants of a volcano crater!

After Valles Caldera, we went to the nearby Bandelier National Monument Park. The park was named after Adolph F.A. Bandelier who studied the history and culture of the natives in the Southwestern part of USA and Mexico. The people back then were known as Pueblo (or Ancestral Pueblo) and have been living in the Southwest for centuries if not thousands of years. Many ruins and archaeological sites depicting their cultures have been found in the area of New Mexico, Utah, Arizona and Colorado. Studies suggest that the Ancestral Pueblo societies in this area, the Frijoles Canyon, were pretty advanced, having mastered agriculture, weapon making, pottery and were living in large villages. After inhabiting the place for 400 years, suddenly though, they all left the area. It remains a mystery why.

Bread dough ready to be put into the oven.

We assume that this was akin to how Pueblo people used(?) to make bread.

The Ancestral Pueblo carved caves out of cliff walls and lived in them. The walls are made of tuff, which is a kind of volcanic ash and is soft. It's easily eroded and easily carved.

This section is called "Long House" You can see a series of rooms carved into the walls.

Notice the carvings on the wall above the holes. These are petroglyhs and were either an art expression of the Ancestral Pueblo people, or it had deeper significance for their lives.

You can see the sheer height of the canyon walls behind us. We were standing in the Frijoles Canyon, just a few minutes after walking away from the cave dwellings of the Ancestral Pueblo people.

There was an Alcove House about 140feet up on the cliff walls. Ancestral Pueblo climbed up with ladders/ropes and toe-finger-holes in the wall. Now we use steep ladders securely fastened to the walls. Still steep though. Mom didn't do this.

While walking on a trail in Bandelier, this coyote came toward us on the trail. He/She wasn't afraid of us at all and came to about 4 meters from us. He made a semi-circle around us and left. It was kind of cool to see him/her so up close.

After Bandelier, we ended our day with a visit to the Los Alamos Bradbury Science Museum. Los Alamos was where the brains of the USA and Britain came together to work on the Manhattan Project, i.e., the project to make the first atomic bomb and end WW2. They succeeded of course, and it was right here that they achieved it. The Science Museum had lots of info on the Manhattan Project and also the current National Laboratory in Los Alamos. Unfortunately we got there with 30 minutes left before the Museum closes, so we only had time to watch a 16-minute video titled "The Town That Never Was". It narrates the history of Los Alamos, how it came to be (basically the idea of Robert Oppenheimer) , the Manhattan Project and the people involved. It was a cool video, though old. Made me realise that indeed, some time one person is enough to make all the difference. Many of those scientists fled their countries to work on the atomic bomb in the US. They fled because the governments of their original countries suppressed them, and in the end these scientists turned the tide of the War.