Today we have planned what should be a relatively easy 80-mile moving day. It's almost due north of our present location here at Bluewater Lake State Park in New Mexico.
Our destination is the Chaco Culture National Historical Park, one of only 19 UNESCO World Heritage locations in the Lower 48 States. That makes them even more rare than visiting one of our 51 National Parks (in the Lower 48) in my book and someplace I think we need to see.
Usually a moving day here on the blog involves a few road pictures followed by a couple of campsite pictures. Today we'll follow the same format only we've have so many photos to share I'm going to tell the story in a slideshow.
MOVING DAY
After a short drive west on I-40 we turned north on NM-371.
NM-371 north of Thoreau is a beautiful drive snaking it's way through the mesas.
The red colored mesas then gave way to a more golden color.
After 60-miles of beautiful driving our route literally took a turn for the worst.
With 20-miles still to go we found ourselves on a very bumpy gravel road.
Each time we came over a new rise in the road we were greeted with more gravel road.
I believe the correct description of the roadway is actually something called "caliche".
We then spotted some interesting rock formations called "hoodoos".
Another interesting formation was this small butte way off in the distance.
The farther we traveled the closer we seemed to be heading for this unique butte.
With less than three more miles to go I suspected this butte was our destination.
Sure enough the park entrance sign had a window to feature Fajada Butte.
Our Visited States Map makes a great seismograph. This time Texas didn't survive! 😢
After 20-miles of bumpy road I joked with Tricia, "Watch, as soon as we reach the park the road will become paved again"! Sure enough I was correct.
We stopped at the Visitor Center to check-in to our campsite and grab some information about what there is to see here. We learned that tomorrow at 2:00PM there will be a Ranger guided hike through the largest of the many ruins found here. WE don't want to miss that!
There was also a 26-minute movie to watch and of course I had to get my Passport Book stamped before I forgot.
We also learned that if you approach the park from the north there is only 13-miles of gravel road to deal with. The problem for us is we want to return south after visiting here and going north just those few miles would add 145-miles to our route. That's just the way the roads work here in this region of New Mexico. It's not just the 13-miles north we'd be traveling out of our way, it's the 60-miles east (all the way to Albuquerque) that really removes our option of leaving in that direction.
We'll just have to deal with backtracking down that 20-miles worth of gravel road come Sunday when it's time for us to leave here.
No water or electric hookups here, but plenty of sunshine for our solar panels.
I even managed to pilfer some firewood from the vacant site next door.
After getting all set up in our campsite we headed back towards the Visitor Center to begin a preliminary driving tour of the 10-mile Scenic Loop Drive that passes by quite a few of the "great houses" that are found here in Chaco Canyon.
Tomorrow we'll get an up close look and actually explore inside several of these 800-1000 year old 1-4 storied dwellings.
FRIDAY - Today, as promised, we're going to go explore some of the "Great Houses" of the Chacoan Peoples. We didn't visit all the houses here, just the ones which didn't involve hiking up onto the plateaus high above the canyon floor.
There are also a large number of petroglyphs here, and a few pictographs, but we've shared may finer examples of those in previous posts.
Today it's going to be all about the never before seen construction techniques used by the Chacoans to construct massive houses of up to four stories tall.
One fact that I found particularly odd was than it is estimated that this entire canyon never housed more than 2000 people year round. It was more like a giant fairground and hotel were thousands of people came together from all around the region for trading goods and spiritual ceremonies.
THE GREAT HOUSES OF CHACO CANYON
At first glance it doesn't look like much.
A closeup view of the intricate mosaic of stones used to construct the walls.
From this angle you can see how thick the walls are.
Two and three story high construction was unheard of 1200 years ago.
This window has a header on top just like construction today.
The square openings are windows and the round ones with the timbers are floor joists.
Even from this distance you can see this one is larger and more complex.
These round kiva rooms were used for ceremonial purposes.
Keep in mind this whole structure was covered with a roof.
It was amazing how perfectly round the kiva rooms were.
Here you can see some of the broken floor joists spanning the room.
In this photo some of the larger and smaller floor joists are visible.
Ladders were used to transfer between different levels in each room.
It was rare to find concentric circles used to create rooms.
This large kiva is where the entire community would gather for ceremonial activities.
Four posts would have been needed to hold up the roof on this room.
Peeking through one of the doorways into the kiva.
A view from the other side.
The trench is a secondary entrance into the floor of the kiva.
Two of the 1000 year old floor joists timbers still in place.
A slightly different mosiac was used when smaller rocks were scarce.
Another perfectly rectangular doorway with timber headers.
The four round holes are where the roof support poles were placed.
On January 22, 1941 a large section fell from the cliffside
and destroyed 30+ rooms of the Pueblo Bonito located beneath.
Today the marked trail traverses between the downed boulders.
Constant efforts are being made by the National Park Service to preserve these structures.
Pueblo Bonito is easily the largest and most intricate house in all of Chaco Canyon.
See the white arrow pointing down on the left side of this photo?
This is where the trail decends and you're allowed to enter the interior rooms.
The interior of the first room.
The timbers were all harvested from forests several hundred miles away.
The are no hardwood trees in the desert of Chaco Canyon.
It's hard to believe so much of the 1000 year old timber is still here.
It was quite a maze of doorways and rooms we were able to explore.
Rooms like this were for storage and not living space.
Here you can see five separate rooms down a long corridor.
This eastern facing "corner window" would align perfectly with the sunrise of the winter solstice.
This "T" shaped door was another unusal feature found only in Pueblo Bonito.
A final look back at the magnificent Pueblo Bonito.
Imagine what it would have been like to explore this during it's occupation by the Chacoans.
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