Volcanoes Day Use Area Audio Tour Stop 3

The view from stop 3 on the Volcanoes Day Use Area audio tour.

NPS Photo / Ben Holt

Quick Facts

Amenities

2 listed

Benches/Seating, Cellular Signal

You have reached stop 3 of the Volcanoes Day Use Area audio tour. You have now walked 0.45 mile or 0.72 kilometers. To your right is JA volcano, the first of the three prominent volcanoes of Albuquerque’s western horizon, commonly referred to as the three sisters. With an elevation of 5,948 feet or 1,813 meters, it is the third tallest cinder cone in the monument.  

To the indigenous people of the southwest, volcanoes like the ones here in the monument are extremely sacred. Many pueblo people share the belief of “emergence”, where their people came into this world from a lower world located below our own. This lower world houses the power and spirits of the ancestors. Volcanoes, with their underground connection into the earth, are therefore a direct pathway to this spiritual lower world and is a place of reverence and power for pueblo people. During the time of the creation of the petroglyphs, 300-700 years ago, many native people were living in villages along the banks of the Rio Grande. This spiritual significance of the volcanoes was one of the factors that drew the Ancestral Puebloan people to this area. 

These traditions and beliefs are still alive in many pueblo communities today. As you are enjoying the trails at Petroglyph National Monument today, please consider the sacred nature of this landscape and treat it with due respect.  

Continue another 0.05 miles or 0.08 kilometers to reach Audio Tour Stop 4