Hikers explore Burnt Mesa. Courtesy/PEECPEEC News:
Join PEEC on a historical hike of Burnt Mesa Pueblo led by Los Alamos Living Treasure, author and local historian Dorothy Hoard.
Hoard will lead this popular hike to spectacular viewpoints starting at 10 a.m. Saturday, April 6.
In the 1290s, the ancestral Pueblo people built several villages across the Pajarito Plateau of a special design that archaeologists came to call “plaza sites.”
Room blocks were built in a tight square around a plaza with only one narrow entrance. The room blocks were multi-storied, even up to five stories high in some places.
The intervening years have eroded the pueblos into mounds resembling giant donuts or bunkers. Burnt Mesa Pueblo is the most accessible of these plaza sites.
It has been excavated (but backfilled) so that quite a bit is known about it.
Hoard always shares many interesting facts about the trails and locations on her historical hikes.
The level hike is two miles round trip. Estimated time is 3 hours, or a bit more if you would like to see the Los Alamos County alligator juniper trees.
Meet at 9:30 a.m. at PEEC or 10 a.m. at the Burnt Mesa trailhead on N.M. 4. The event is free and no registration required.
The Pajarito Environmental Education Center is at 3540 Orange St. behind Los Alamos High School.
Visit www.PajaritoEEC.org, call 662-0460 or e-mail Programs@PajaritoEEC.org for more information.
