The Stone House

CCC Cabin

The other evening, when leaving the Visitor Center, a young couple hit me with a barrage of rapid- fire questions. “Does anyone live back there?” “Is it creepy?” “Do you ever get visitors, you know like family?”

I live in a house made of stone. The walls and floor of my home are made of igneous rock that flowed from the Jemez Volcano more than a million years ago. The volcanic eruption created the landscape on which my humble dwelling was built. Years after the eruption, young men with pick axes and crosscut saws, earning a dollar a day, toiled under the scorching New Mexican sun, quarrying slabs of stone to be cut into thick blocks that would make the walls of my house as well as thirty other structures in Frijoles Canyon that now comprise the Bandelier Historic District. These buildings, made of compressed volcanic ash (tuff) walls and basalt floors, serve as offices, visitor facilities, employee residences, an entrance kiosk and fire tower. We owe this good work to the Emergency Conservation Work Act of 1933, which provided funding and meaningful employment to thousands of jobless young men enlisted in the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC).

CCC enrollees cutting stone

The men who cut the rock, also cut down timber, juniper, ponderosa and pinon pine, creating wood ceilings with elaborate woodworking detail and design. The architectural style, Pueblo Revival, was chosen to blend with the environment and the structures of local culture. There is both pride and privilege to working and living in the largest assemblage of CCC buildings in the National Park Service. Yet as with any collection of old buildings there are problems, drafty doors and windows, leaky roofs and mice who would rather live indoors than out. Yet the opportunity to be fully immersed in this part of American history is rewarding, mice and all. Yes, I have had visitors and none thought my home was “creepy.”

Moonlight Snowshoe

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Under the light of a waxing gibbous moon, twenty people strapped on their snowshoes in preparation for a hike winding along the upper reaches of Frijoles Canyon. This was the first moonlight event offered in Bandelier National Monument this winter. As we walked into the night the moon played hide and seek behind the limbs of aspen, Engelmann spruce, Douglas fir and ponderosa pines. One minute bathed in light, the next in shadow, we marched along content in our thoughts and happy to be surrounded by our companions. Most of us never take the time or have an opportunity to explore the forest at night, especially in winter when temperatures reach freezing and our thoughts are more inclined to imagine warm fires and hot cocoa. For those willing to surrender to the chill of evening air the rewards can be great.

Bandelier Moon

The Jemez Mountains are home to a healthy population of elk. As winter snow piles deep in the highest elevations of the Monument, elk begin to move down to regions of greater food availability. Simply put, less snow cover allows these animals access to more food. It is not uncommon to see herds swell to as many as fifty individuals where forage is abundant.

As we trekked along our route we listened and watched for elk, identified constellations and enjoyed the simplicity of non-motorized locomotion. At the end of our hike we were satisfied with time well spent. Next month in the light of a Bandelier moon I invite you to share in a similar adventure. Please contact the Visitor Center for details, 505 672-3861 ext. 517.

Skiing the Bandelier Nordic Trails

Solitude in the Pines

For anyone seeking quiet and solitude I recommend visiting Bandelier in winter. Winter at the Monument provides opportunity to marvel at deep blue skies while traversing high elevation trails by skis or snowshoes. Bandelier’s Nordic Ski Trails wind through aspen, fir, spruce and pine, each species offering a visual delight of textured bark and heady fragrance.

After a snowfall I delight in the opportunity to hit the trail. Each stride of my skis fractures the stillness with the sound of crunching snow, adding punctuation to a landscape bathed in silence, where only an occasional bird provides afternoon company. I look for chickadees, red crossbills, stellar jays and nuthatches busy in their task of procuring food. I admire the tiny chickadees' ability to adapt to the heat of summer and chill of winter with equal measure. Crossbills work steadily prying open cones for treasured seeds. In the distance the “yank, yank “call of the nuthatch reminds me a of tiny tinhorn. Bandelier's high elevation trails are a reminder of diversity in a world filled with simple beauty.