The snow had melted at Bandelier but not in the Jemez Mountains! We couldn’t take our favorite route across the mountains; the RV isn’t meant for dirt roads covered with snow. So we took the long way around the mountains and passed the Jemez soda dam, a weird construction built over time by minerals in the water. We were debating going into Chaco; I was seeing a lot of puddles and when the red clay roads get wet, vehicles have no traction at all. We have slid into a couple of ditches over the years. But we decided to go and the sixteen miles of unpaved road was washboardy, but dry.
Chaco Culture National Historical Park is an amazing broad canyon that contains six enormous “Great Houses” plus many smaller ones. Pueblo Bonito is the largest of these, with 600 rooms rising to four stories in some areas and 40 kivas (subterranean, round ceremonial chambers). These structures were created 800-1100 A.D. (By the 1300’s, like other pueblan communities in the Southwest, they were largely abandoned.) The great houses in Chaco Canyon were connected by roads to more than 150 great houses throughout the region. Some of the roads were used so heavily that the many feet traversing them have created channels in the rock. There are also “Chacoan staircases”, scary-looking, hand carved steps to help travelers climb vertical cliffs. It is believed by many that these roads were used primarily for trade and that Chaco was a major trade center. Perhaps local turquoise was traded for macaws, shells and copper items from distant lands. There are petroglyphs of parrots and sea turtles and other non-indigenous creatures. The National Park Service has excavated different great houses to differing degrees and has rebuilt certain walls to give a feeling for how the architecture looked long ago.
We went on a hike to Alto Pueblo, which is built on the mesa above Chaco Canyon. You begin by scrambling up 250 feet through a crevice in the cliff face. Then a mile of hiking brings you to Alto, which isn’t excavated much. I was thinking about finding the fossilized sheep teeth in the South Dakota Badlands, and began looking at all the rocks on the side of the trail. Something caught my eye: a fragment of black and white-striped pottery. A little later, Dave found three pieces. Having learned our lesson in the Badlands, we photographed them and let them be.
Wednesday, we got up at dawn and went to photograph Pueblo Bonito. Dave and I both have our favorite areas. Mine is a wall that is unfinished and is far from straight. Both of us were feeling worn out, and the high winds gave us a valid excuse to relax inside during the afternoon. Dave went out to catch some sunset light, but clouds were not cooperating.
We woke up to a layer of snow on everything on Thursday. It was chilly, but the winds had stopped, so we went on another hike to see Pueblo Chiquita. (I keep wanting to call it Chiquita Banana.) The big attraction to us was the petroglyphs near the Pueblo. They were extensive and interesting. In addition to the Anasazi petroglyphs, the Navajo’s have etched some wonderful horses and war scenes, and surveyors and sheepherders have left messages as well. Near another Pueblo ruin, archeologists surmise that a pictograph (painted, as opposed to being pecked into rock) of what looks like a star, may be an image of a supernova star that occurred during the time the Anasazi were in Chaco.
