Opportunity for discovery: On Albuquerque's West Side, this national monument is home to more than 20,000 petroglyphs

One of the most appealing aspects of the Petroglyph National Monument is that each visit presents the opportunity for new discoveries.

The 17-mile escarpment located along Albuquerque’s West Mesa is believed to be home to more than 20,000 petroglyphs — images of animals, people and other objects — carved into the rocks located on the monument. Not all of these are visible to the public, but access to the three hiking areas on the 7,236-acre space allows visitors the opportunity to see hundreds of the carvings created by people (primarily the ancestors of the pueblos) who inhabited the land hundreds of years ago.

Opportunity for discovery: On Albuquerque's West Side, this national monument is home to more than 20,000 petroglyphs

Different petroglyph images tend to resonate with different people. For Rachel Taylor, who is a park ranger of interpretation and education at the monument, there’s one located on Rinconada Canyon trail that ranks among her personal favorites.

“It’s about maybe halfway down the petroglyph viewing trail, which is on the north side of the canyon. We tend to think of it as the Hummingbird Petroglyph,” Taylor said. “It is kind of a small bird body, but then it’s got this long beak protruding out of it, and it actually kind of goes in a circular direction around its body.”

There’s often more than one way to interpret each carving.

“I recently learned that there is kind of another way to view that petroglyph. That would be that line is not so much its beak, but actually the life force or life breath,” Taylor said. “That kind of goes back to the idea that every living thing … they breathe out a life force and then something else kind of breathes that in.”

Images such as the one described by Taylor were sacred to the Pueblo people that created them, and it sometimes took an entire day to carve them into the rocks.

“You can imagine people coming that lived along the Rio Grande, walking up here to the volcanic escarpment and carving a petroglyph that took at least several hours,” Taylor said. “It was probably something very, very important to them.”

While Rinconada Canyon features approximately 300 petroglyphs over the course of its 2.2 mile loop, visitors often tend to gravitate toward Boca Negra Canyon, which has about 100 viewable petroglyphs.

“Boca Negra Canyon is our most popular site, especially during Balloon Fiesta,” Taylor said. “It is a collection of three small trails and of the three, there are two that are very short and easy, so if people just kind of want a very short or small kind of start to hiking or to seeing the petroglyphs, they can go to Boca Negra (and) they can hike the Macaw Trail and the Cliff Base Trail and they can see up to probably around 50 petroglyphs just within those two little trails.

“If they’re feeling a little bit more adventurous, they can go to the third trail, which is Mesa Point, and that one is kind of steep because it goes up the escarpment. You’ll see more petroglyphs, especially at the base of the trail and as you walk up.”

The third option is Piedras Marcadas Canyon, a 1.5-mile round trip that features the largest concentration of petroglyphs in the monument.

“In an hour and a half walking (a) trail that is pretty flat, you get to see over 400 petroglyph images,” Taylor said. “… You get away from the city and the hustle and bustle of the streets and neighborhoods, and you enter just a more sacred area. You get to see more wildlife.”

Those who are interested in learning more about the meaning and origins of the petroglyphs can visit the monument’s information center. There are also signs along the trails explaining some of the carvings.

Hiking at the monument is primarily a self-guided endeavor, but volunteers often lead weekly hikes depending on the time of year and weather conditions. The schedule for these can be found via the calendar icon on the monument website, nps.gov/petr. Meanwhile, park rangers host free guided tours for elementary school students throughout the year.

Taylor says that visitors should be prepared for hiking in desert conditions, which means bringing water, sun protection and ideal walking shoes. Once on the trails, it’s important to respect the surroundings.

“Because we are a living cultural landscape, we do emphasize that people stay on the trails and do not touch the petroglyphs because they can degrade or fade quicker if people are touching them,” Taylor said.