Bandelier Trip

 Our family has a one year pass to visit Bandelier National Monument (it's only a 20 minute drive from our home). We enjoy going to climb the ladders and see the pretty area. This time we went to the tall sets of ladders where you climb up 140 vertical feet on 4 ladders. All three kids did it on their own. Here's the first ladder. Lucas was perhaps the bravest and ascended first.

Here's the second ladder. Brian stayed right behind Marcus just in case but Marcus did it all on his own. Naturally Lucas was first up again.

Angela and the older two went up the 3rd ladder first and posed at the top of the ladder (you'd have to click on the picture to see it bigger).

The 4th ladder is not nearly as tall as the others. At the top there are some holes in the rock walls where the Indians made roofs and upstairs floors in their homes.

There's also this cool home that you can climb down into.

This is inside the home.

This photo can give you some perspective on the height of the ladder climbs and how shear the face of this canyon wall is. Click on the photo to see a couple of those taller ladders we climbed up. The overhang 3/4 the way up is where the homes were.

Here's some video of Marcus climbing up the 3rd ladder with Brian right behind him. Then of Angela, Travis, and Lucas climbing down, at 4 times speed, the 2nd ladder. Finally a little squirrel that apparently had hidden his nuts in the middle of the trail and was retrieving them.