New Mexico National Parks

New Mexico national parks have the visitors marveling at the architecture and culture of ancient times, exploring inactive volcanoes, miles and miles of caves, and wondrous white sands. The history and stories of Native American culture are kept alive through their modern day ancestors while those settlers and missionaries traveling west, guided by natural landmarks, left behind their individual "marks" to tell their stories. You can also explore military outposts for the protection of commerce routes heading west

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Visit These New Mexico National Parks:

Aztec Ruins National Monument: Over two centuries ancestral Pueblo people at Aztec carefully planned and built a settlement that included an array of large public architecture and smaller structures, earthworks, and ceremonial buildings.

Aztec Ruins Weather

Bandelier National Monument: Help us make this website better. Give us your ideas here. Bandelier National Monument The ancestors of modern Pueblo people built thriving communities in the area called Bandelier about 600 years ago. Several thousand Ancestral Pueblo dwellings are found among the pink mesas and sheer-walled canyons.

Bandelier Weather

Capulin Volcano National Monument: Mammoths, giant bison, and short-faced bears witnessed the earthquakes and firework-like explosions which hurled molten rock thousands of feet into the air. Approximately 60,000 years ago, the rain of cooling cinders formed Capulin Volcano, a nearly perfectly-shaped cinder cone, rising more than 1000 feet above the surrounding landscape.

Capulin Volcano Weather

Carlsbad Caverns National Park: As you pass through the Chihuahuan Desert and Guadalupe Mountains of southeastern New Mexico and west Texas—filled with prickly pear, chollas, sotols and agaves—you might never guess there are more than 300 known caves beneath the surface. The park contains 113 of these caves, formed when sulfuric acid dissolved the surrounding limestone, creating some of the largest caves in North America.

Carlsbad Caverns Weather

Chaco Culture National Historical Park: Chaco Canyon was a major center of Puebloan culture between AD 850 and 1250. The Chacoan sites are part of the homeland of Pueblo Indian peoples of New Mexico, the Hopi Indians of Arizona, and the Navajo Indians of the Southwest.

Chaco Culture Weather

El Camino Real de Los Tejas National Historic Trail: ¡Hola! Bienvenidos al Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail. Come on a journey that will carry you through 300 years of Texas and Louisiana frontier settlement and development.

El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail: Take a journey on El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail to savor 300 years of heritage and culture in the Southwest.

El Malpais National Monument: El Malpais means the badlands but this volcanic area holds many surprises. Lava flows, cinder cones, pressure ridges and complex lava tubes dominate the landscape. A closer look reveals high desert environments where animals and plants thrive. Prehistoric ruins, ancient cairns, rock structures, and homesteads remind us of past times. Visitors need to be prepared for exploring this rugged place.

El Malpais Weather

El Morro National Monument: A reliable waterhole hidden at the base of a sandstone bluff made El Morro (the headland) a popular campsite. Ancestral Puebloans and Spanish and American travelers carved over 2,000 signatures, dates, messages, and petroglyphs for hundreds of years. We invite you to make El Morro a stopping point during your travels.

El Morro Weather

Fort Union National Monument: "Many ladies greatly dislike Fort Union. It has always been noted for severe duststorms. Situated on a barren plain, the nearest mountains…three miles distant, it has the most exposed position of any military fort in New Mexico.…The hope of having any trees, or even a grassy parade-ground, had been abandoned long before our residence there….Every eye is said to form its own beauty. Mine was disposed to see much in Fort Union, for I had a home there." Mrs. Orsemus B. Boyd, 1894, recalling her residence at Fort Union in 1872.

Fort Union Weather

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument: Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument offers a glimpse into the homes and lives of the Mogollon people who lived in this area over 700 years ago. Because of ongoing bridge repairs, the namesake dwellings may be closed on and off for the next several months. When closed, visitors have the option to tour an unexcavated surface pueblo usually not open to the public.

Gila Cliff Dwellings Weather

Old Spanish National Historic Trail: Take a journey across the Southwest on the Old Spanish National Historic Trail between Santa Fe and Los Angeles for history, culture, and scenic beauty.

Old Spanish Trail Ratings

Pecos National Historical Park: Pecos preserves 12,000 years of history including the ancient pueblo of Pecos, Colonial Missions, Santa Fe Trail sites, 20th century ranch history of Forked Lightning Ranch, and the site of the Civil War Battle of Glorieta Pass. For several centuries the Upper Pecos Valley, has been one of those rare places where the impact of geography on human experience is strikingly clear.

Pecos Weather

Petroglyph National Monument: Petroglyph National Monument protects a variety of cultural and natural resources including volcanos, archeological sites and an estimated 20,000 carved images. Many of the images are recognizable as animals, people, brands and crosses; others are more complex. These images are inseparable from the cultural landscape, the spirits of the people who created, and who appreciate them.

Petroglyph Weather

Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument: Once, thriving American Indian trade communities of Tiwa and Tompiro speaking Puebloans inhabited this remote area of central New Mexico. Early in the 17th-century Spanish Franciscans visited the area and found it ripe for their missionary efforts. However by 1677 the entire Salinas District, was depopulated of both Indian and Spaniard alike.

Salinas Weather

Santa Fe National Historic Trail: The Santa Fe Trail of the US National Parks stirs imaginations as few other historic trails can. For 60 years the Trail - weaving through New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas and Missouri - was one thread through the tallgrass prairie in a web of international trade routes. It influenced economies as far away as New York and London. Spanning 900 miles of the Great Plains prairie between the United States (Missouri) and Mexico (Santa Fe), it brought together a cultural mosaic of individuals who cooperated – and at times clashed.

White Sands National Monument: At the northern end of the Chihuahuan Desert lies a mountain-ringed valley, the Tularosa Basin. Rising from the heart of this basin is one of the world’s great natural wonders – the glistening White Sands New Mexico. Here, great wavelike sand dunes of gypsum sand have engulfed 275 square miles of desert and have created the world’s largest gypsum dunes field.

White Sands Weather