Another road trip?
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| My kind of road |
Why not?
Scott had decided to go to Las
Vegas and Death Valley with a friend to enjoy some warm weather and play a
little golf. Why should I sit home when I could knock off another national park
(and a few more national monuments)?
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| More places to check off |
First, a word about that: Yes, I really do want to be able to say I have visited every national park. I am very close, so it really makes sense. I don’t think I’ll ever get to the every national monument/national seashore/national historic place/etc./etc. point because there are too many, they are constantly being added and – I just found out – some are not accessible. But, with only 59 national parks, the goal is within reach. At the beginning of the trip, I had nine to go.
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| Passports |
So, I planned a road trip with my primary goal being Joshua
Tree National Park in California. With all the cold and snow we’ve had in
Colorado, I was also envisioning some downtime, lying by a pool in Arizona.
But, I didn’t lay out a specific plan.
I headed out with my first stop planned: Chaco Culture
National Historic Park in northwestern New Mexico.
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| A remote Park |
I have visited most of the
NPS sites in New Mexico, by Chaco has always been just a bit too far. So, I
made it a first goal.
Chaco is not easy to reach. I couldn’t leave until afternoon,
so I drove from Colorado Springs to just north of Albuquerque for the night. As
I drove, I left snow and gray and entered sunshine (still cold, but bright).
I even worried that Chaco might be difficult to reach because the forecast was
sub-freezing at night.
Luckily, the 135-mile drive was dry and sunny. Most is
nice highway, but after the turnoff, there is eight miles of paved and 13 miles
of dirt road. The last five miles was
very rough, including crossing a wash that had a few inches of water running
across it and a quarter-mile section that was so rutted, I had to carefully
dive on the tops of the ruts. I should have taken a picture, but I was afraid that if I stopped, I would get stuck.
As a result, the park is relatively empty. And,
when I arrived the weather was glorious – sunny, cool-turning-to-warm.
Chaco Culture National Historical Site is a partially
excavated ruin of a major series of communities that were the center of the
ancient Chaco culture about 1,000 years ago.
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| Ancient ruins |
The ten sites sit in the middle of
Chaco Canyon ...
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| A wide valley crossroad |
... and, based on the more than 400 miles of carefully planned ancient roads leading into the canyon from all
directions, this was the epicenter of a much broader civilization spread cross
northern New Mexico. Six of the sites are situated along a nine-mile paved loop
road and are easily walkable.
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| Map: GORP |
The others are fairly close and can be hiked to.
Because I was on a mission, I didn’t really have time to hike, so I just
visited the ones along the road ...
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| Una Vida |
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| Hungo Pavi |
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| Chetro Ketl |
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| Pueblo Bonito (the only fully excavated ruin) |
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| Pueblo del Arroyo |
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| Casa Rinconada |
The Chaco culture began in the mid-800s and lasted about 300
years. They used masonry techniques unique to their culture to build large,
multi-room, multi-story structures.
It was interesting to see the way they built walls ...
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| Brickwork |
... and to see beams that are over 1,000 years old ...
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| Beams |
Not to mention some of the striking natural features of the canyon ...
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| Amazing that this is still standing |
Some buildings had hundreds of rooms;
larger than any other settlements ever found.
Although there is evidence the buildings were planned from the start,
some took decades – or even centuries – to build. The oldest are Pueblo Bonito ...
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| An amazing site |
and Una Vida …
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| Up on a hill |
More recent are Hungo Pavi and Chetro Ketl ...
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| Different kinds of excavation |
Many of the buildings are oriented to solar, lunar and
cardinal directions and all the sites have multiple kivas.
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| You can see two kivas |
Although many are remarkably preserved, some have had to be shored up to protect them from further decay, some are surrounded by rubble ...
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| A variety of excavation styles |
And, many remain unexcavated to protect them.
Because the site was
a major gathering place, archeologists believe the buildings were more like
public places than farms.
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| Art in the way this eroded |
Artifacts indicate that multiple clans converged and
that the site is important to the development of the Navajo nation. They also
believe climate change eventually lead inhabitants to move on to areas such as
Mesa Verde to the north.
In addition to impressive ruins, there is also a walk along
the back cliffs highlighting a number of petroglyphs.
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| Ancient messages |
As I said, the park was not crowded – but, there were other
people there. Some looked to be day-visitors like me and some were camping (I
wondered how they got some of the vehicles down that road) and many were
hiking. Still, I spent my time at most of the sites alone – except for the hawk
that joined me at Chetro Ketl.
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| Red-tailed Hawk |
When it came time to leave, I put my next destination in my
GPS and headed back the way I came because my atlas indicated only one access
road. I passed a road sign pointing the other direction and my GPS kept telling
me to turn around. So, I asked the ranger, who indicated that there was another
dirt road that was rough, but driveable. Despite the scary sign …
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| Okay ..... |
… I took it. It was better than the road in and cut off
quite a bit of time as I headed toward my next waypoint. My objective was to
make it to Flagstaff, Arizona, for the night.
Trip date: March 7-14, 2015
