Los Alamos Part 1

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After 2 weeks in Taos, our next stop in the mountains of northern New Mexico is to the rather isolated town of Los Alamos. It is about a 76 mile drive to the Elks Lodge in downtown Los Alamos. It’s a pretty drive with much of it following along the Rio Grande River. Our plan is to spend 7 nights at the lodge which offers 50 amp electric and water. We had contacted the lodge to check on availability a few days earlier and were told we would have a spot. We arrived before the lodge opened for the day. While we were trying to figuring how we wanted to orient the rig in the spot, the Elk member that had responded to our request drove up and introduced himself. It wasn’t clear how he happened to know we were there unless he was driving by and noticed a rig in the otherwise empty parking lot.

Made It to Los Alamos

Part of our reason for wanting to visit this part of the state is to complete our visits to the 3 places associated with the Manhattan Project. We had visited possibly the least well known of the 3 Manhattan Project sites - Hanford in Washington state - back in June of 2017 where we toured the B-Reactor. Back then we were really just checking out some of the attractions in the Tri-Cities area of Washington during our 10 nights camping in a Corps of Engineers park. It was then that we realized we enjoyed the tour and should really check out Oak Ridge Tennessee and Los Alamos New Mexico. Before we managed to fit these stops on our travels plans, we had fortuitously ended up in Alamogordo New Mexico in April of 2018 on the day that they open up the Trinity Test Site in the northern part of the White Sands Missile Range to the general public. This is where the first atomic bomb was detonated in 1945 which led to the bombs used over Japan to end World War II. It took us another 8 years before we actually fit stops at the final two Manhattan Project towns but 2026 was the year to complete our mission. We toured Oak Ridge in just over a month ago and now we will get to see Los Alamos.

Since we had a few hours before the lodge opened, we decide to head over to the Manhattan Project National Historical Park visitor center that is just a few blocks away so it’s a quick walk. It was only open for another half hour or so but we figured we could stamp our National Park passport and check out the displays in that time. It’s not a big place but there was a ranger and a couple of volunteers inside. We ended up talking with one of the volunteers until they were just about to close. He told us all about the origins of Los Alamos and its history. We could tell the other workers were looking to close up so we skipped the displays and headed to the Los Alamos visitor center on the other end of the same building. The woman working the desk was fairly young and when we asked about hiking in the area, she had a wealth of information to share. We got a lot of good suggestions and a few maps before we headed out.

Manhattan Project Visitor Center

We still had time before we could go back to the lodge to register and pay for the week, so we headed down the street to checkout “Bathtub Row”. The five houses on this block were originally built in 1917 for the Los Alamos Ranch School which owned the land and operated on the property before the government decided this was a good place to build a secret town for the Manhattan Project. The homes here had bathtubs whereas all the other housing built for the project were hastily constructed buildings with only showers. People like J. Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi lived in these well appointed homes during the project. Several of them are now privately owned and off limits to visitors. One of them is open for tours if you purchase a ticket at a local museum.

Privately Owned Home on Bathtub Row

Old Army Car Out Front

Oppenheimer House

On the way back, we check out the Fuller Lodge. This beautiful building was built in 1928 as a community center for the boys ranch. It transitioned into meeting rooms and a mess hall for during its Manhattan Project years. Today is is open to the public for events and has an art gallery.

Fuller Lodge

Vertical Log Building

Just behind the visitor centers is Ashley Pond. There is a nice walkway around the pond with tables and benches for visitors to sit and relax.

Fountain in Ashley Pond

Fish Sculpture

We walk back to the lodge and by now it was open and there were about 10 members sitting around the bar. We head in to register and pay. We start talking with some of the members and get a better feel for the town of Los Alamos. One of them works at the laboratory so he had a bit more insight to its inner workings. The town really doesn’t have enough room to house all the employees working at the laboratory so a great many of them drive in daily from a few nearby towns or even from Albuquerque - over 90 miles away! The lodge turned out to be fairly quiet at night with one exception. One hundred yards from our rig is an intersection with a crosswalk. There isn’t a lot of traffic at night and practically no pedestrians, but the crosswalk has the buttons for pedestrians push to get a “walk” signal along with the synthetic voice telling them it is safe to cross. If that’s all it did, there wouldn’t have been a problem since I doubt the button was pressed more than a handful of times per day. The real issue was the fact that in its normal state waiting for the button to be pushed, it beeps. It does that 24/7, day or night with a beep every second. At night when it cools off enough to open the windows to sleep, we could clearly hear that incessant beeping.

For our first full day, we headed about 20 miles to the west to Valles Caldera National Preserve. This 88,900 acre park is in the Jemez Mountains. Volcanic activity 1.2 million years ago created what is here today - a 14 mile wide circular depression surrounded by mountains. We start out with a hike that has its trailhead about 2 miles before the main entrance to the visitor center. Our goal is to hike the Coyote Call Trail Loop. It’s just under 3 miles and just over 500 feet of elevation gain. We figure it makes sense to get the hike started early before it becomes too hot. The trail ranges from 8700 to about 9200 feet, so the higher elevation should help moderate the temperature a bit. The trailhead parking is directly across the street from an elk viewing area but none were visible when we first looked.

View on Drive to Valles Caldera

Elk Viewing Area

Starting Up Trail

The trail starts climbing up right away. About a half mile in, the other hike that follows this trail splits off and continues up to the ridge of this hill. We stay to the left and follow a trail that stays about level halfway up the hill. While the Rabbit Ridge Trail might have provided a better view since it climbs nearly 900 feet, we picked our hike based on a geocache being hidden along it. About 3/4 mile into the hike, we came upon a couple of women doing some trail maintenance with a hand saw. We initially assumed they were part of the park service but it turned out they were just conscientious hikers doing their part. We chatter for quite some time and got a few more hiking and sightseeing suggestions from them. They asked if we had seen the elk from the parking area and said if we look closely in the vast meadow below, we might be able to pick out some of the herd. Sure enough, when the tree cover opened up along our trail we could just make out the dozen or so elk grazing likely more than a mile from our spot.

Overlooking Caldera in Distance

Elk a Mile Away

Better Caldera View

As we worked around the eastern edge of the trail, we needed to head a few hundred feet off trail to go find the geocache. This whole area had a wildfire in the 2022 timeframe but it sounded like the ammo can had survived the flames and heat with just a few plastic trinkets being melted inside. It hadn’t been logged in over a year but we managed to make the find and were amazed how good of shape it was in given how the area looks.

Bell Flower

Burned Area Near Geocache

The rest of the hike was all downhill. The trail seemed a little more overgrown but it also didn’t seem to be impacted by the fire. We made it back to the car and headed into the park to check out the visitor center.

Main Entrance to Vales Caldera National Preserve

Visitor Center

We knew they had some sort of ranger program that explains the geology of the region and how it came to be. Fortunately we had time to have our lunch at one of the picnic tables before the program was to start. They have an 8 foot diameter table that represents the caldera and animation displayed on the table showing what geologists believe to have happened all those millions of years ago to create what we have today. It was kind of interesting but hard to get pictures of it in action.

Geology Display

This area was in private ownership from the 1860’s until 2000. Initially it was used for sheep grazing but over time it changed to cattle. Many of the old buildings were the homes or barns for the cowboys and animals are still standing on the grounds of this preserve which came under the National Park System in 2014. We walked around some of the old buildings and read about how they were used over the years.

Old Commissary

Bond Cabin

Old Barn

We were considering coming back to do a long bike ride that travels on some of the dirt roads and trails in the park to complete a15 mile loop. While we were walking around the buildings, we saw a couple of cyclists heading our way. They had camping gear on their bikes so we suspected they were fairly serious riders. We flagged them down and asked them about the trails since they were coming from the place we thought we might ride. They had only followed the dirt road into the park to do some camping so they didn’t know about the other trails but the impression we got from them was it likely wouldn’t be all that much fun. Better to find that out before we haul the bikes out here later in the week. We head back to the car and selected one more hike/geocache to try on our way back to Los Alamos. On the main park road out is an area with lots of prairie dogs. We stop to check them out.

Prairie Dog on Alert

The cache we wanted to find was on the Valley Grande Trail on the east side of the caldera. It was less than a half mile from the parking area along Highway 4 so we thought it would be fairly quick and easy to go for the find. We really should have looked more closely at the trail map for this particular hike. We didn’t have great cell reception so checking AllTrails wasn’t going to happen. So we parked and went on our merry way.

Valley Grande Trailhead

Fire Came Through Here Too

Well it turns out that even though the cache was 0.37 miles from parking, the trail to it was a series of switchbacks dropping over 400 feet into the caldera. In a little over a mile, we finally made it to ground zero, made the find and then had the long uphill climb back to the car. Hopefully lesson learned but I doubt it!

Columbine

Down in Caldera

The next day we head over to visit some of Bandelier National Monument. The main portion of this park is south of Los Alamos but there is a smaller, satellite property east of town and about 12 miles from the main park. Tsankawi is an historical ancestral pueblo village. There is a 1.5 mile trail that loops through the old ruins. It’s going to be another hot day so we are on the trail just after 8 AM and we are the only car in the parking lot. We start up the trail and a quarter mile in we hit our first ladder. Sometimes Chris can be afraid of trails with ladders but she has no problem heading up.

Tsankawi Entrance

Chris Made It Up First Ladder

The trail follows a ledge for a few hundred feet before hitting the split in the trail which forms the loop. Taking a left will head further up and is likely the preferred direction. The trail has some really interesting spots where the path is worn into the rock. These trenches were worn into the soft volcanic rock from the people living here for hundreds of years.

Ledge After Ladder

Well Worn Paths

There are also a few sections where the path goes between two boulders making for a tight fit. Not all visitors will be able to squeeze through some of the spots. As we proceed up in elevation, the distance views improve. One section of town with lots of large building must be part of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Narrow Squeeze

View to the South

Likely Los Alamos National Lab Buildings

When we finally make it to the top of the mesa, we start to have views to the north as well. From here we can see some of the old adobe structures on the valley floor below. There are no trails into this part of the park so this will be the best view we get.

View to North

Adobe Ruins

Continuing east along the ridge, we come to a spur trail that leads out to the Tsankawi Pueblo. Of course it is closed as the park service is doing some sort of rehabilitation program and has bag full of some of the adobe bricks from the buildings. It isn’t clear if they are going to be reused in the restoration or simply being stored.

Bags of Adobe

Bright Cactus Blooms

The trail then cuts back to the south and follows along the southern edge of the mesa. From here we get a much better view of some of the trails below. The ledge we came across after climbing the ladder has some rather major openings beneath it. There is a long section of trench that we will get to on our return trip. There is another area where the the rock is worn in more like footsteps going up a slope instead of a trench.

Seeing Openings Beneath Trail

More Worn Trail

More Worn Footholds

When we reach the far end of the loop, there is another ladder we must descend. That wouldn’t have been too bad but to reach the ladder, there is one of those very narrow trenches. It takes a bit of coordination to move your feet without tripping when they are constrained by a 6 inch wide groove. Have a slip here could be disastrous. I go first to prove to Chris it can be done and she cautiously follows without incident.

Trench Leads to Ladder

Chris Makes Her Way Down

There are more narrow foot trenches to walk through but along this lower section, there are several of the “rooms” to look in.

Pretty Obvious Trail

Inside Room

We find several petroglyphs carved into the rock as well as a few shards of broken pottery sitting around.

Petroglyph

As we work back towards the parking lot, there are several groups of other visitors arriving. Fortunately we crossed paths with them at wider sections of the trail. If this place is full of people, it seems like passing one another could be a challenge. We make it back to the parking lot just before 10 AM and it is starting to fill up with cars. Several groups were starting out - I wish them luck. This was an interesting place to check out. I wouldn’t consider it a hike but more like a walk through history.

Another Group Heads Up

Our plans for the rest of the day were to drive into Española to try out a farmers market and then go have lunch at a popular Mexican restaurant. It’s about a 20 minute drive to the farmers market and while Chris wanders through the vendors, I walk down the street to find a geocache at a small campus of Northern New Mexico College. When I get back to the market, Chris is waiting empty handed. So the farmers market was a bust. It was way too early for lunch but we weren’t seeing much to do elsewhere in town. I remembered the drive along the river a couple days ago was pretty and there were numerous pullouts, surely there must be some geocaches along there. We check and find there are a couple near the County Line Rio Grande Gorge boat launch. It’s about a 20 mile drive which should kill just enough time to bring us to lunchtime when we arrive back in Española.

Being a Monday morning the place wasn’t too busy. There were no buses waiting for rafters like we had seen on our drive by but it was still a pretty place and got us down to water level.

Rio Grande River Up Close

Based on our maps, the geocaches were down a trail along the river. As we headed in that direction, we discovered that the “trail” was more like a path the fishermen periodically use to get to other spots along the river. We weren’t really dressed for this type of a walk, but we managed to find the first cache without issue. The next one was down the trail maybe a quarter mile so we continued on only to realize that it it was well up the gorge wall along this part of the river about 130 feet above us. We probably should have turned back and headed for lunch, but we are persistent at times so we found a bit of a wash heading up that looked possible. A couple of old cars were abandoned at the base of the climb.

Old Abandoned Cars

It was challenging without our normal gear, but we made it up, found the cache and had a great view. We saw a pullout on the road that had a path leading up to this cache. We definitely took a more challenging approach! We knew coming back down the same way was going to be impossible without slipping. We had enough cell coverage to check out the aerial view and realize that there might be a better route back down to the trail back to the car.

Nice View from Up High

There were lots of sketchy spots and we came close to sliding down but made it back safely and staying clean enough to go into La Cocina New Mexican Restaurant. The place was packed, especially for a Monday at lunch. But we didn’t have to wait long for a seat and the food was excellent. We are becoming accustomed to the waitress asking “red or green sauce?” whenever we order. Our choice is green.

The next day we opt for a planned hike but we don’t intend to leave town and head into the mountains. The topography of Los Alamos is very unique. It sits on a large mesa with mountains to the west and a valley to the east. But instead of being a large flat mesa that drops off into the valley below, there are numerous canyons that have been carved out over the millennia, all running in a general east to west orientation. These are not just minor ditches but in the order of 400 to 600 feet deep. With this type of terrain, there is a good portion of the town’s area that isn’t capable one being developed for homes - thus the housing issue I mentioned earlier. But these canyons have been developed for recreation with all sorts of trails that run down, through and up them.

Google Earth View of Los Alamos' Canyons

With all the canyons and trails, there are almost too many to choose from. We pick one from AllTrails that uses a series of trails to make a 3 mile loop. The Acid Canyon, South and North Pueblo Bench, and Ranch School is a rather long name but sounded like a local favorite. Even though it drops into two different canyons, we are at the western edge of them so they aren’t all that deep - the whole trail will be about 400 foot elevation gain. We could easily have walked from the Elks Lodge to the trailhead but that would have added one mile each way. Instead we drive to the Aquatic Center parking lot and pick up the trail in Kinnikinnik Park. We didn’t go more than a quarter mile before we realized we had missed a turn for our intended hike and ended up at some event at the Los Alamos Nature Center. We backtracked and got back on our trail.

Kinnikinnik Park

Inadvertent Stop at Nature Center

It was definitely a pretty hike with some steep sections as we drop down into Acid Canyon. It doesn’t take long before getting into the canyon that it seems likes we are in the middle of nowhere instead of surrounded by a town with over 13,000 residents. There will be a few pedestrian bridges that take us over the deeper part of Acid Canyon.

Heading Down into Acid Canyon

Bridge Over Deep Part of Canyon

Walking along the rim of Pueblo Canyon is possibly the prettiest section with an amazing sheer cliff walls into the water below.

Looking Across Pueblo Canyon

The bridge over this canyon is much more substantial which is good since it’s a long ways down. There is a gas line suspended over the canyon less than 100 feet to the west.

Major Bridge Over Pueblo Canyon

View from Bridge

On the opposite side of the canyon we slowly descent to nearly water level and cross back over a smaller bridge. We have several geocaches to look for along the hike today and one of them was up the side of the canyon hidden in some huge boulders. It was a bit of a challenge to get up there but we eventually found it.

Smaller Bridge at Opposite End of Canyon

Small Butterfly on Pink Flower

Head Up There for Geocache

About a half mile from the end of the hike, the trail comes up into a residential neighborhood and we need to follow the street for a few blocks before finding the trail heading back into Acid Canyon. With our geocaching detours, the hike came in at 3.3 miles and 550 feet of elevation gain. But by getting an early start, we beat the worst of the heat and were back to the rig for lunch.

By mid afternoon, we decide to head over to one of the museums in Los Alamos. The Bradbury Science Museum is part of the National Laboratory so it is quite well done and informative. It’s even free!

Bradbury Science Museum

There are lots of displays on all things associated with the Manhattan Project and the laboratory in general. We had recently rewatched the movie Oppenheimer to refresh our memory so it was neat to have that in our minds as we wandered the various rooms.

Oppenheimer in All White

There were a large number of interactive displays where you could better understand some of the complex physics behind the project. We spent over 90 minutes and only did a small fraction of the hands on displays. It’s very well done and the price is right. We’re only halfway through our weeklong stay but have seen so much and enjoyed Los Alamos.

Lots to Learn Here

Life Size Replicas of Bombs Dropped on Japan