~Petroglyph National Monument, NM~

We have just spent the last 4 nights in Tijeras which is a short drive from Albequerque, NM.    The campground was in the beautiful hills of New Mexico. On one of the days we went to Petroglyph National Monument.  This was a great place to do some hiking.  Petroglyph National Monument stretches 17 miles along West Mesa, a volanic basalt escarpment that dominates Albuquerque's western horizon.

It was a beautiful, hot, sunny day and the views were amazing.   We started at Rinconada Canyon where we did a 4 km hike through sand around the volcanic base.

There were hundreds of petroglyphs which we enjoyed looking at.

The sand was so soft and our shoes and socks were SO dirty!

The next hike we did was at the Boca Negra Canyon.  We were able to hike up a steep section of the volcano and view many more petroglyphs along the way.  We had a beautiful view of Albuquerque from the top.

After we had finished our hikes we went back to the Visitor Centre where the boys received another Junior Ranger badge - yay!