1. Aztec Ruins National Monument

Designated: 1923; World Heritage Site, 1987
Location: Aztec
Acres: 320
Main attraction: More than 500 masonry rooms in "great houses" built by the ancestors of today's Pueblo people. Over a 200-year period it became the largest pueblo in the Animas Valley until the 1300s. The "Great Kiva" is the largest reconstructed kiva known.
Little known fact: Looting was rampant at Aztec Ruins last century. One man told archaeologists he and his father dug up three burials and sold them to the Smithsonian Institution for $25 apiece.
New cool stuff: If you can't get there, take a virtual visit through the monument with a 37-frame slide show at www.nps.gov/azru/photosmultimedia/index.htm.



2. Bandelier National Monument

Designated: 1916
Acres: 33,000-plus
Location: Near Los Alamos off N.M. 4
Main attractions: The 1.2-mile Main Loop trail through Frijoles Canyon takes visitors past ancient, ancestral pueblo sites, including some built into the canyon wall. An extra half-mile trek along the Frijoles Creek goes to Alcove House, built 140 feet above the canyon floor and accessible by climbing four ladders. A separate section of the park called Tsankawi is 12 miles from the main part and has a 1.5-mile trail along a mesa that has petroglyphs, cavates and an ancient pueblo.
Little known fact: Each year vandals cause $20,000 in damage at Bandelier.
Cool new stuff: With National Parks Foundation grants inspired by Ken Burns' PBS series, Bandelier hired local Pueblo teens last summer to learn about Bandelier and give tours.



3. Carlsbad National Park

Designated: A national monument in 1923 and a national park in 1930
Location: Near Carlsbad
Acres: 46,000
Main attraction: A wonderland of caves to explore from the 8-acre enormous Big Room to the narrow passages of the Hall of the White Giant or Spider Cave. The park includes 116 caves, but not all are open to the public. Guided trips through less known, less developed caves are available.
Little known fact: Bones from Ice Age animals like jaguars, camels, lions and giant sloths were found in the entrance areas of some caves in the park.



4. Capulin Volcano National Monument

Designated: 1916
Location: About 220 miles from Santa Fe and 33 miles east of Interstate 25 at Raton
Acres: 793
Main attraction: A two-mile road takes visitors to the top of the Capulin Volcano rising 1,000 feet above the ground. The volcano was formed 60,000 years ago. Human presence there dates back 10,000 years. Visitors can hike around the rim or down into the crater.
Little known fact: Capulin Volcano, one of the darkest places in New Mexico, is a great star-gazing spot.



5. Chaco Culture National Historical Park

Designated: Monument, 1907; re-designated a national historical park in 1980
Location: Northwestern New Mexico; the recommended access route to the park is from the north, via U.S. 550 and County Road 7900, and CR 7950. Some of routes recommended by map companies and GPS units are unsafe for cars.
Acres: 33,000
Main attraction: World-renowned great houses of society that flourished from 800 to the 1200s, many oriented to solar, lunar and cardinal directions. Evidence of sophisticated astronomical markers and water-control systems.
Little known fact: Trader Richard Wetherill, known for rediscovering Mesa Verde and excavating at Chaco, was murdered by a Navajo man in 1910 and buried near Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon. His grave is still there along with his wife and a few park superintendents.
New cool stuff: The Chaco Digital Initiative, a collection of over 7,000 images, plus links to research on tree rings, maps and other information at www.chacoarchive.org/.
Activities: Nine-mile loop to many of the Chacoan sites as well as three other trails, Wijiji, Kin Klizhin and Case Chiquita, open to bicycles.



6. El Malpais National Monument

Designated: 1987
Location: 72 miles west of Albuquerque
Acres: 114,00
Main attraction: El Malpais, meaning the badlands, is filled with ancient jagged lava flows, cinder cones, pressure ridges and lava tubes as well as prehistoric ruins, ancient cairns, rock structures and homesteads.
Little known fact: Nine square miles of El Malpais were turned into a bombing range in 1943 for 10 months by Kirtland Air Force Base. Planes dropped 100-pound bombs, and nearby residents could hear the explosions.
New cool stuff: Check out the photo gallery compiled by park staff at www.nps.gov/elma/photosmultimedia/photogallery.htm.



7. El Morro National Monument

Designated: 1906
Location: About 42 miles south of Grants
Acres: 1,278
Main attraction: A water hole at the base of a sandstone bluff that was a popular stop for ancestral Puebloan, Spanish and American travelers for hundreds of years. A half-mile trail takes visitors to the pool past more than 2,000 signatures, dates, messages and petroglyphs left by historic visitors. The two-mile headland trail goes to top of bluff for a look into pueblo ruins.
Little known fact: Gov. Don Juan de Oñate in 1605 was the first person to carve an inscription at El Morro, 15 years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.
New cool stuff: El Morro is in the historic range of the endangered black-footed ferret.



8. Fort Union National Monument

Designated: 1954
Location: 94 miles from Santa Fe off Interstate 25 north
Acres: 720
Main attraction: Ruins of three forts, the first built in 1851, to guard the Santa Fe Trail, self-guided interpretive trails and ruts of the Santa Fe Trail.
Little known fact: In his 2008 Myth of the Hanging Tree, author Robert J. Torrez notes two men were hung from a telegraph pole at the fort in 1872.
New cool stuff: The park is working on a new Living History volunteer program of the 1st New Mexico Volunteers, who were mostly local New Mexicans and Hispanic descendants, some of whom fought in the Civil War battle at Glorieta Pass.



9. Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument

Designated: 1908
Location: 44 miles north of Silver City
Acres: 533
Main attraction: Cliff dwellings built by the Mogollon people in six caves above the Gila River more than 700 years ago.
Little known fact: All the wood at the cliff dwellings is original. Tree ring data indicate the wood dates from 1276 to 1287.



10. Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument

Designated: 2001
Acres: 4,645 acres
Location: 40 miles southwest of Santa Fe
Main attraction: A national recreational trail for foot travel winds through the monument's famous tent rock formations, some up to 90 feet tall. The cream-colored cones, called tapering hoodoos, are made of 6 million-year-old pumice and volcanic tuff. The Cave Loop Trail is 1.2 miles, and the more difficult Canyon Trail is a 1.5-mile, one-way trek into a narrow canyon with a steep 630-foot climb to the mesa top.
Little known fact: Kasha Katuwe was one of the New Mexico film sites for a short-lived NBC science-fiction series in the mid-1990s called Earth 2, now available on DVD.
New cool stuff: Podcasts covering geologic and cultural aspects of the park are available online at www.blm.gov/nm/st/en/info/podcasts.html.



11. Pecos National Historical Park

Designated: National monument, 1965 and a national historical park, 1990
Location: 25 miles east of Santa Fe
Acres: 6,608
Main attraction: The ruins of the Cicuye, a pueblo dating to 800 that at one point was home to 2,000 Pecos Pueblo people and the ruins of a historic Catholic Church. Visitors can hike around the ruins and go into a conserved kiva.
Little known fact: Coronado set out in 1541 from Pecos Pueblo to hunt for the mythical land of great wealth called Quivira.
New cool stuff: A new 2.25-mile self-guided trail through a Civil War battlefield and a new fishing program allowing a limited number of anglers to fish a gorgeous stretch of the Pecos River that has been closed to the public for years.



12. Petroglyph National Monument

Designated: 1990
Location: West of Albuquerque
Acres: 7,232
Main attraction: Volcanoes, archaeological sites, and an estimated 20,000 petroglyphs carved between 3,000 B.C. and 1300 A.D. that stretch 17 miles along Albuquerque's West Mesa.
Little known fact: The monument is home to two kinds of millipedes that range in size from 3 to 6 inches long.
New cool stuff: The monument offers a Web-based Junior Ranger program where kids can earn a certificate and badge by completing a series of activities at www.nps.gov/archive/petr/webranger.htm.



13. Salina Pueblo Missions National Monument

Designated: Originally established as Gran Quivira National Monument in 1909; became Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument in 1980.
Location: Southeast of Albuquerque, east of Mountainaire
Acres: 1,100
Main attraction: The ruins of four mission churches that symbolized early contact between Tiwa- and Tompiro-speaking Pueblo people and Spanish colonists in the early 1600s.


14. White Sands National Monument

Designated: 1933
Location: Between Las Cruces and Alamogordo in Southern New Mexico
Acres: 143,733
Main attraction: Dunes of glistening white gypsum sand stretching across 275 square miles. Periodically closed because of bomb testing by nearby Holloman Airforce Base.
Little known fact: A lot of the explosion scenes in Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen were filmed in White Sands near the monument.
New cool stuff: Check out video made last year of Mike Pudlo's hike through the dunes at http://video.yahoo.com/watch/3603195/9944097.