Tyuonyi Pueblo in Frijoles Canyon, Bandelier National Monument. Courtesy/NPSBANDELIER News:
Every year, Bandelier National Monument gets to celebrate two birthdays: the park was authorized Feb. 11, 1916, and the National Park Service was established the same year Aug. 25, now known as Founders Day.
“After an eventful first century, the agency now cares for 417 of the most significant and amazing historical, cultural and natural areas in the country,” Bandelier Superintendent Jason Lott. “They range from Yellowstone and Carlsbad Caverns to the Washington Monument, from Gettysburg and Hawai’i Volcanoes to the Martin Luther King Memorial, and from Little Bighorn Battlefield and Grand Canyon, to Bandelier.”
To celebrate the agency’s birthday, Friday is a fee free day, with no entrance fees being charged throughout the whole far-flung National Park System. Many areas, including the nearby Valles Caldera National Preserve and the Los Alamos site of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, are free every day, since they do not charge entry fees. So, Friday may be a good opportunity to visit those that do, such as Bandelier.
The other fee free days remaining this year are Public Lands Day, Sept. 30, and the two days of the Veterans Day weekend, Nov. 11 and 12.
Visitors who decide to go to Bandelier should remember that throughout the summer, anyone arriving at the park between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. will need to catch the shuttle bus from the White Rock Visitor Center.
For more information on shuttles, birthdays, the National Park Service, or Bandelier National Monument, contact the park Visitor Center at 505.672.3861 x 517. Bandelier also has a website, www.nps.gov/band, a Facebook page, BandelierNPS, and Twitter.
