Visit Wilderness

Search for a wilderness as the destination for your next outdoor adventure.

Bob Marshall Wilderness Area, Minnesota

Why Visit Wilderness?

While wilderness can be appreciated from afar—through online content, television, or books—nothing compares to experiencing it firsthand. Activities like camping, hiking, or hunting allow you to fully enjoy the recreational, ecological, spiritual, and health benefits that wilderness areas offer. These areas provide “outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation,” chances to observe wildlife, moments to renew and refresh, and the physical benefits of outdoor exercise. In many wilderness areas, you can even bring your well-behaved dog.

Learn more about the diverse ways in which we benefit from wilderness and threats wilderness areas face today.

From the twelfth to the mid-sixteenth centuries, a large population of Ancestral Pueblo people flourished among the cream-and-tan cliffs and piñon-juniper-forested mesas of the slopes of the Jemez Mountains. The dramatic setting, now Bandelier National Monument, showcases sheer-walled canyons dividing the long mesas of the Pajarito Plateau.

When the people moved on, they settled in villages along the Rio Grande known today as Cochiti, Santo Domingo, San Felipe, and San Ildefonso Pueblos. Their present-day descendants maintain close traditional ties with the dwellings on the mesa tops, cliffs, and canyon bottoms throughout the monument.

The best-known sites are found along an easy self-guiding trail in Frijoles Canyon, just behind the park Visitor Center.

Seventy percent of the monument is designated as Wilderness.

With 70-plus miles of trails and elevations from 5300 feet at the Rio Grande to over 10,000 feet at the top of Cerro Grande, Bandelier offers a variety of scenery and habitats. Hikers will inevitably encounter challenging terrain, sweeping mesa tops, lush canyons, and isolated archeological sites.

Hiking choices vary in distance and difficulty, with choices including: four miles one-way to the 600’ deep gorge of Alamo Canyon; six miles one-way to the ancestral pueblo of Yapashi; a 22-mile loop to Painted Cave in Capulin Canyon; about seven miles one-way to the densely forested upper part of Frijoles Canyon, repeatedly crossing El Rito de los Frijoles (Bean Creek).

Two westbound trails leave the monument to enter Dome Wilderness.

Leave No Trace

How to follow the seven standard Leave No Trace principles differs in different parts of the country (desert vs. Rocky Mountains). Click on any of the principles listed below to learn more about how they apply in the Bandelier Wilderness.

Plan Ahead and Prepare
Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces
Dispose of Waste Properly
Leave What You Find
Minimize Campfire Impacts
Respect Wildlife
Be Considerate of Other Visitors

For more information on Leave No Trace, Visit the Leave No Trace, Inc. website.

Location

The Bandelier Wilderness is located within Bandelier National Monument and adjacent to the Dome Wilderness that is administered by Santa Fe National Forest.

Maps

Digital and paper maps are critical tools for wilderness visitors. Online maps can help you plan and prepare for your visit ahead of time. You can also carry digital maps with you on your GPS unit or other handheld GPS device. Having a paper map with you in the backcountry, as well as solid orienteering skills, however, ensures that you can still route-find in the event that your electronic device fails.

Online Maps

Interactive Map of the Bandelier Wilderness
Google Earth

New Mexico Wildernesses

Printed Maps

Fetching MyTopo from Database

USGS Store

Rules & Regulations

Motorized equipment and equipment used for mechanical transport is generally prohibited in all wilderness areas. This includes the use of motor vehicles, motorboats, motorized equipment, bicycles, hang gliders, wagons, carts, portage wheels, and the landing of aircraft including helicopters.

Wilderness-Specific Regulations

Learn more about why regulations may be necessary in wilderness.

Contacts

Applicable Wilderness Law(s)

Public Law 94-567

Date: October 20, 1976
Acreage: 23,267 acres

(No official title, designates National Park Service wildernesses) - Public Law 94-567 (10/20/1976) To designate certain lands within units of the National Park System as wilderness; to revise the boundaries of certain of these units; and for other purposes.

For more information (To download or see all affected wilderness areas) visit our law library for 94-567 or special provisions for 94-567 or legislative history for 94-567.

Want to Volunteer for Wilderness?

People who volunteer their time to steward our wilderness areas are an essential part of wilderness management. Contact the following groups to inquire about volunteer opportunities. Groups are listed alphabetically by the state(s) in which the wilderness is located.