You might be exploring Petroglyph National Monument with teens if you hear one of them say, “I wonder if hundreds of years from now people will be looking at today’s graffiti this way.”
Petroglyph National Monument is a site in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with several different trails featuring rocks with petroglyphs.
(We have been taking advantage of my son’s Every Kid Outdoors Pass and visiting as many National Park sites as possible. For this post, I will use National Park to mean any park site, including historic sites, monuments, etc.)
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Our Suggested Itinerary
Petroglyph is different from many parks because it is located in a city, and the different trails are several miles apart. Your first stop should be the information center. This is a small center that offers information and a gift store. There are also vault toilets at this location.
This is where you can get your passports stamped, your junior ranger books, and a good map of the trails. There is one small trail behind the information center, but no petroglyphs are there.
Once you have your map, you can choose one or more trails. We only had a few hours at this site, as it was a stop along our route for the day. So, we chose to only go to the Boca Negra location. This location has three trails, picnic tables, and a bathroom.
Some of the trails are wheelchair accessible, and they have viewing tubes for those who can’t get up close. However, we hiked one of the trails up the canyon and were able to see many different petroglyphs up close. There was also an amazing view of the area from the top of the trail. We enjoyed the hike and the petroglyphs but did not feel like we missed out on anything by not being able to go to the other locations.
If you only want to visit one or two trails and the information center, you can do this park in about two hours. However, if you have more time, you could check out the other trails and spend a full day exploring.
Science and History at Petroglyph National Monument
The primary focus of this park is the petroglyphs. There is much to learn about indigenous cultures from the drawings they left behind. While there are some information boards about the petroglyphs, we found that we needed more information to dig into the history. We purchased the Easy Field Guide to Southwest Petroglyphs to help my children learn more.
From a science and nature perspective, the canyon is volcanic rock, which provides a really interesting nature study. You can also see a variety of different desert plants and animals. We enjoyed seeing all of the plant and animal life, but if I had it to do over again, I would get field guides like this plant guide and this guide for animals to bring with us.
If you get a chance to visit, let me know how you like it. Don’t forget to take your park passport and get it stamped! We have found that the passport is a great way for the children to get a souvenir at each park with no additional expense after the initial purchase.
Where:
Information Center: Albuquerque, NM Unser Blvd. NW at the Western Trail intersection, approximately 3 miles north of I-40
Trails are located within a few miles of the information center.
Hours of Operation:
Information Center is open from 9 am to 4 pm seven days a week (closed on major holidays)
Costs: Free
Homeschool Discount: n/a
Website: https://www.nps.gov/petr/index.htm
Food: No food is available on site, but restaurants and parks are nearby.
Pro tip: find a grocery store that sells Biscochitos, the New Mexico state cookie. The anise flavor is delicious.
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