Wandering Around: Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

Nov. 13- 15, 2014

I knew that Anasazi ruins dotted the entire Colorado plateau, and I'd always wanted to re-visit one of the most impressive, Mesa Verde, but it was hundreds of miles east--and we were headed south and west. However, when I read about Chaco Canyon in House of Rain by Anasazi expert Craig Childs, I immediately decided I had to see it. I've always liked exploring abandoned places--and this was one of the premier abandoned places in the Southwest. Even better, it is one of the most out-of-the-way abandoned places, as well, at the end of a 20 or 30 mile mostly-dirt road, and 50 miles or so from the closest population center, Farmington, NM. Anyone who goes there really wants to go there; it's not on the way to anywhere else. The ruins (5 or 6, I think) are spread out along both sides of a 10 mile long canyon, and we drove along the road, stopping at each ruin, and walking through it. Very few other people around. The most extensive of the ruins, Pueblo Bonito, was built in stages between 850 and 1150 AD. That sounds impressive, and it is, but even more amazing is that Anasazi architects planned for at least a 3-storey structure before they laid the first stone. Archaeologists know this because the ground floor walls are so thick. Imagine planning for a 300-year build. Such continuity of purpose--and from a culture that did not even have the wheel!

Here's Pueblo Bonito, along with bits of some of the other Chaco ruins:

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Great Kiva at Pueblo Bonito

Great Kiva at another of the ruins

Pueblo Bonito

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Pueblo Bonito

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Ground floor of 3-storey Pueblo Bonito

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Great Kiva. Not sure which of the Chaco ruins.

We spent most of the day walking through the several Chaco ruins...and drove back to our campsite feeling a little overwhelmed.

On the way out of Chaco, driving through miles of huge sky and desolation, we passed another ruin, this one comparatively recent: