September 30, 2021
Chaco Culture National Historic Park
Moore’s RV Park Bloomfield, New Mexico
My walk this morning took me through a nearby neighborhood. The highlight was right here in the campground, a beautiful rose garden. My grandparents had beautiful roses and seeing these blooms this morning brought back a flood of treasured memories.
Today, our adventure was to travel to Chaco Canyon and to visit the cultural site there. We left with this hand drawn map.
At the intersection of the highway and Route 7900 we had 21 miles to go. The first 5 miles were paved. The next 7 miles was rough gravel washboard, and the last 4 miles to the National Park was hardpacked rutted dirt road.
We stopped at the Visitor Center and the ranger gave us a brief overview of the park and things to do. Tim was interested in hiking trails. The ranger recommended the 5.4-mile loop trail at Pueblo Alto. She stated that the trail began with a fun little rock scramble and then continued along the cliffs with views of the ruins below.
This butte, Fajada Butte, is a sacred place. On the top the Cahcoans had a solar calendar that helped them detemine the solstice, marked holidays, and determined their planting and growing seasons.
We did walk among the ruins, as we made our way around the park loop road. These ruins were created earlier than the Aztec Ruins we visited yesterday. These great houses were built from 850 to 1150 and inhabited until about 1250. In contrast to the ruins we saw the other day, these have had relatively little repair work. The tops of the walls have been sealed with mortar to keep moisture from leaking into the walls and joints. The lumber for the beams in these houses was hand carried from a forest 50 miles away.
Pueblo Bonito is the largest and was the most developed of the great houses here. This is a representation of what the community looked like.
We had lunch in the parking lot near the trailhead for the Pueblo Alto Trail. In the lot, we met a 75 year old man from New Mexico. He makes the trip to Chaco about 6-7 times a year. He was an avid cyclist, cycling about 100 miles a week, until a year ago. He was hit by a drunk driver while riding in a bike lane. Both of his legs were smashed and he couldn’t walk for three months. He is still undergoing physical therapy, or physical torture as he calls it, 2 times each week. He brought his grandson here today. The man was going to work on walking correctly with his two walking sticks, while the grandson, his fiancé, and the dog were hiking the trails. This guy is truly an inspiration!
I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to do this hike, I had already walked 3 miles in the morning…but I didn’t say anything and instead mustered up my enthusiasm and my energy. I am so glad that I went! The beginning of the trail was ¼ mile of that “fun little rock scramble.” Up we climbed. It was challenging in places…but nothing too hard for us and once we were on top, I realized that it was fun!
The trail was marked by cairns. Sometimes it took an effort to find the next one. I was glad I purchased the backcountry hiking trail guide. It helped us decide from which direction we should approach the loop. This may have saved us from getting “lost” later in the day. Sometimes it was hard to believe that we really had to follow the cairns…YES…that is really the trail!
Pecked Basins were carved into the sandstone along the path; sometimes round and sometimes rectangular. Archeologists believe that these were repositories for offerings.
Terrace View…wow…sometimes when we are hiking there are places that take your breath away…
The overlook onto Pueblo Bonito was amazing. Seeing the community from above puts things into perspective in a whole other way. These great houses were huge, well built, and preplanned so that even as the people built and added over the centuries…it was all part of a master blueprint.
We knew there was a chance of rain even as we began our hike. The light rain didn’t bother us much. I had my new rain resistant jacket and I was comfortable…but as the rain began to fall harder, we looked for a place to take shelter. We found a rock ledge that we sat under and we waited about 20 minutes for the shower to pass.
The Chacoan people created roads to make it easier to get from one place to another, The terrain in this area is very rough and the people walked. If there was an obstacle, they had to find a way to circumvent it. This is a portion of road only partially excavated.
Chacoan Steps where we took a break.
Because it was raining and because we still had miles to go and because we had seen lots of other ruins, we decided not to add an extra mile to the hike to see Pueblo Alto.
Jackson Stairway – These steps were carved into the side of this cliff. The steps are now very fragile and dangerous and no longer used.
The views from the edge of the cliff.
There was second chasm that we had to negotiate. It was a narrow and steep descent. I used my hips to wedge myself against the rocks as I searched for my next foothold…again another fun little challenge.
The rock in the distance was the one we had to pass through to get down to this level.
And because it was a loop, we had to go back the way we came. There was that ¼ uphill on the way that became ¼ mile downhill on the reverse route. I scooted down a lot of this portion…it felt like the safest way for me to get down! We were laughing and smiling all day! Hopefully you can tell that we enjoyed the day from our pictures of one another!
We finished the hike in 4 hours. When we got back to the Jeep it really began to rain. The dirt road was muddy and the Jeep got really dirty…another sign of a good day.
We still had a long drive back to town. I was imagining a cheeseburger. Tim was imagining a beer with his burger! I found a steakhouse in town that would meet our needs but when we finally got there…it was gone! We ended up at Lotaburger. I even had fries with my burger smothered in green hatch chiles and pickles and lettuce and tomatoes and mustard and bacon and cheese. We were so famished that we ate them in the Jeep in the parking lot. We never have burgers…that made this taste especially delicious…a rare treat!
