• Great Kiva with Walls of West Ruin

    Aztec Ruins

    National Monument New Mexico

For Kids

Children in Junior Ranger Camp

Ranger working with kids in Storytellers Junior Ranger Camp during the summer of 2012.

NPS Photo by Junior Ranger Camper

Junior Ranger Program

Children can become Junior Rangers and earn an Aztec Ruins Junior Ranger badge by exploring the archeological site and answering questions in our Junior Ranger activity booklet, provided at the Visitor Center. Along the way they learn about the history and preservation of this place while making connections to the ancestral Pueblo world.

Did You Know?

Animas River

Aztec Ruins lies near the banks of the "River of Lost Souls." In 1776, a Spanish exploration party noted many ancestral Pueblo ruins as they crossed the Animas River valley looking for California. Father Escalante named the stream "Rio de las Animas Perdidas," or "river of lost souls."