Hey, we’ve got a Jeep, why not let the Jeep be the Jeep. Why did we buy it? So, off we went to test the road. Most was fine though we noted some wet spots that were pretty slippery. The roads were not just sand but a slippery clay which made it a greater challenge. We were doing fine until we rounded a corner and saw this sight. There are actually 3 more cars on our side in back of me and 2 trucks with trailers on the other side out of the picture waiting to make a decision on whether to try driving over the wash. Altogether there are about 10 cars or trucks waiting.
Hmmm. Swiftly moving, brownish grey water covering the roadway. Cars parked on each side. People out of their cars looking at the water and talking. Lots of clues here. So we did the natural thing - we got out of our car and began talking too. We learned (which we suspected) that the rain from yesterday had caused the wash to run and flow over the road. The Ranger, who had just driven back and forth over the wash and whose truck is on the other side of the wash driving up the hill, said that the flow might go down over the next hour or might not. We could try going over the wash or we might not. It was up to us. Another noncommittal Ranger.
Here’s my favorite picture, two guys, hands in pockets, leaning backwards, analyzing the problem:
not too deep on the left side
yeah, it only came up to the Ranger’s hubcaps
there’s cement under the water, not like it’s sand there, should help hold the road
think the water’s gone down a bit
think the current has, too
yep, doesn’t look too deep
my Kia might be a bit light
my Jeep is 4000 lbs.
And,with that last statement, Gary said, ‘I’m going through it.’ He got into the Jeep, rolled down the windows and did not put on his seat belt (in case he had to bail quickly out of the windows), drove slowly into the water to test it, turned to me and said, ‘I’m going to give it hell’, gunned it and drove through. He moved so quickly that I didn’t even get a picture of his going through the water. I then hitched a ride with my ‘new best friends’ in their Kia and we blasted it.
I should point out here that I was standing back thinking it best to wait a bit more for the water to go down. Gary fully intended coming back through for me but I had already hitched a ride.
Gary then got out of the Jeep and began talking to the people on the other side of the wash. The second one in line was a woman with her 80’s mother who, after hearing Gary’s pep talk, finally gunned her car and drove through it. Here she is blasting through.
Then there was the tiny blue Ford Focus on our side. 60-ish female with here 80-ish mother. She must have thought she had a 4-wheel drive, high clearance, fortified Hummer the way she blasted through. Here they come, not a bit of fright in their eyes. I think the mother’s smiling and yelling ‘whee.’
Ahead of us was a long patch of 8” deep rutted clay. Downhill, rutted, slippery clay with skid marks on on the sides from others who had not been able to hold the road. We then followed that Focus through this clay, saw it fishtail, slide perpendicular to the road, correct and turn 180 degrees to slide perpendicular again before correcting enough to get to the end of the clay and hit solid - sand.
The rest of the trip was pretty ordinary except that not too many people had made it in today. There is a 9-mile one-way road (paved) through the park which takes you by all the major sites.
Chaco was the administrative, ceremonial and economic center for all of the Ancestral Puebloans, from Hovenweep to Mesa Verde to Aztec and throughout this entire area. They started their buildings here around 800 AD and mysteriously left around 1300 AD. They built massive, several story buildings, 30’ wide ‘roads’ connecting them to at least 150 other Ancestral Puebloan communities, built dams and other water control features, built towers with lines of sight to other towers for communications and devised sophisticated astronomical markers to determine seasons.
They traded extensively: remains of Mexican macaws and parrots, seashells, turquoise, copper bells and other commodities have been found. They also had to travel hundreds of miles to get the timbers they used in their construction.
However, by the 1200’s, the influence of Chaco was fading and shifting to other communities. Eventually, all the Ancestral Puebloans migrated further southward, many ending up along the Rio Grande and many ending up in Hopi territory in Arizona. Why did they leave? No one knows but many Southwest Indian people today say that it was time for their ancestors to move on and they still revere Chaco as a valuable spiritual part of their past.
Since Gary and I have spent several days recently viewing ancient dwellings and communities, we decided to take the circular trail around the ridge line to get an overview of the largest buildings. The trail we took is not visible to the naked eye from the road since it goes through a slim slot between the cliff and a large chunk of rock which has broken off. And, up we went.
It was a great trail and we got a marvelous bird’s eye view down onto the largest buildings, Pueblo Bonito and Chetro Ketl. To get an idea of the size of this, please note the person in black walking along the large wall in the lower left of the building.
We also were able to walk on one of the roads. The extent of their roads was only recently discovered - from the air. Planes flying over could detect them whereas someone on the ground could not. They were often 30’ wide, did not go around obstacles but up and over them, sometimes with ramps up to the cliffs and often by pecking foot and hand holds in the rock cliffs. Here is a picture I took of one of these hand and toe hold ‘ladders’ going straight up a cliff with a ramp below it to get to the cliff face. The first picture shows the scene with the ramp and the cliff face. The foot and hand holds are to the left of the highest bush on the ramp The second shows the foot and hand holds carved into the rock.
Now, imagine carrying a timber for pueblo construction in your hands, climbing up one of these cliffs. The dark round spots are the hand holds. Rangers and archeologists have climbed these to demonstrate how durable and usable they were.
Great overviews of the buildings, walking on their roads, seeing their ramps and ‘ladders’ all made this trail special. But the trail itself was pretty neat with interesting crevices to clamber up, a ridgeline to walk around, the 360 degree vistas from the top and the chance to imagine living in this remote almost barren place.
After hiking the trail, we did explore the massive pueblos. Here are a few pictures of the construction. First, note how the wall is thicker at the bottom in order to hold up the 4 stories.
Next note the square doorways.
And, here’s an interesting corner window. Putting a window in the corner compromises the integrity of the wall but these walls have held up for 800 years.
Most of these walls were plastered and painted but both those have worn away and all we have are the walls now.
Ceilings for lower levels and floors for the upper levels were made by putting large timbers several feet apart into holes in the wall and then laying smaller timbers at right angles across them and then filling these in with mortar. Here is an example from the Aztec Ruins which we visited yesterday. Much of these timbers has rotted away leaving only the high stone walls.
Getting out of Chaco was much less adventuresome and we drove back to our RV without incident. Luckily we had a Jeep and luckily we arrived later than we usually do to a site. If we had gotten there earlier, we might not have stayed long enough for the water to go down enough in the wash to become passable.
We certainly have learned a lot about the Ancestral Puebloans and their culture and appreciate all that they have done with the little that they had. They were also able to survive in this harsh, arid country, devising trade routes, building massive 4 and 5 story structures, developing agriculture and making their homes here.
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