Home for the Holidays, November 4 – November 10, 2010

Don’t worry, we aren’t going to bore you with all of the details about our holidays, but, as we said in our last posting, there were a couple more adventures after we started for home from Zion. We made a short stop at Glen Canyon Dam and went through its visitor center. Lake Powell was down about 50 or 60 feet, and the walls of the canyon above the waterline were bleached an artificial-looking white in contrast to the surrounding red rock. They have an interesting, small museum to tour, as well as some amazing views to see. Despite the issues caused by flooding the canyon, it is an engineering marvel.

Lake Powell behind Glen Canyon Dam

Aztec Ruins National Monument

Location: Northwest corner of New Mexico; N36 50.106’ W107 59.927’

We stayed the night at Farmington, NM, and the city of Aztec, NM is not far from there. The ruins, of course, are very close to the city of the same name. The city visitor center at Aztec recommended some lunch places and suggested that we also visit Salmon Ruins while we were in the area. We hadn’t heard of Salmon Ruins, so this was another bit of serendipity along our way. Aztec Ruins is actually another example of the ancestral puebloans’ culture and is not related to the Aztec culture. Again, each site that we’ve visited provides another piece of the puzzle of that fascinating part of history that we completely missed in school, and the rangers and guides each have their own tweaks to the theories about this ancient culture.

Aztec Ruins

The time period of Aztec Ruins follows and overlaps slightly that in Chaco Canyon, which we discuss later. Physically, this site is located between Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon, but is much more similar to Chaco than to Mesa Verde and is actually connected to both Chaco and Salmon ruins by ancient Chacoan roads. The site included some interesting architectural features including decorative stonework, and the site’s Great Kiva has been fully restored and finished inside to match one man’s (Earl H. Morris) theory of the interior appearance.

Decorative Stonework at Aztec Ruins

Great Kiva

Inside Great Kiva, One View

The Salmon Ruins are much smaller and are privately owned, but the site was very interesting. It is less restored than others we’ve seen, and a large part remains partially unexcavated. The site also includes the pioneer homestead of George Salmon and an informative museum. We got some very useful information from a couple that we met there who had just come from Chaco Canyon and could tell us that there would be no problem getting our trailer over the long dirt road into the canyon, even though the last two miles were especially rough, or getting a camp site. That saved us from making a half-day round-trip to check things out for ourselves.

Masonary Work at Salmon Ruins

Chaco Culture National Historical Park (Chaco or Chaco Canyon)

Location: Northwest corner of New Mexico; N36 01.809’ W107 54.642’

To get to Chaco, from the northwest, as we were coming, one goes through the “town” of Nageezi (but don’t take highway 57 out of Nageezi as the old signs suggest) and follows highway 550 to County Road 7900. The pavement of 7900 ends, and one then follows unpaved CR 7950 into the canyon. There was not water available (some more information that we got from the couple we met) in the Canyon, so plan accordingly if you get there after the water is turned off for the year. There also is no lodge or other place to stay besides the campground. Hotels and motels are available at Farmington and Bloomfield, but it’s a pretty good trip in and out if you want to view the canyon for more than one day. We stayed at the campground in the park two nights, which gave us about 2 ½ days, and we felt (as usual) that there was still more to see and do. You can get a good flavor of the place if you drive in from your motel and spend most of the day there.

Pueblo Bonito from Rim Trail

There’s an interesting small museum at the modern visitor center, several ruins of different sizes throughout the canyon, petroglyphs, and many miles of trails to explore. We were able to drive in, set up camp, visit the museum, take a ranger-led tour of Pueblo Bonito (really good tour), tour Chetro Ketl, and see part of the petroglyph trail all in one day. Besides these, during our stay, we toured the ruins of Una Vida, Hungo Pavi, Pueblo Alto, Peublo del Arroyo, Kin Kletso, and Casa Rinconada. We also did the Pueblo Alto Trail, one of the backcountry trails, which provided amazing views of the canyon from the rim and took us across and along one of the ancient Chacoan highways. Chaco was the center of what is now called Chaco culture, with multi-story, pre-planned great houses being a distinctive trait. Within 50 or 60 miles, there are dozens of other “Great Houses” that are part of this culture, but we didn’t try to get around to those, except for Aztec and Salmon Ruins as we talked about before. There were three other backcountry trails that we thought would be good, but we had turned the horse towards the barn and…

Chaco Canyon Petroglyphs

Kin Kletso Ruins

Start of Pueblo Alto Trail

(trail goes between rocks at shadow)

The rest of the trip home was pretty uneventful, which is not entirely bad. We did get to travel a short distance on the old Route 66 and camp right beside it one night. There were several places along our travels where we crossed this famous legendary American highway.

So we nestled back into our home to enjoy family and friends for the holidays before heading out on more adventures.