Chaco Culture National Historical Park

We had been hearing a lot about Chaco Canyon and the Chaco culture so thought we should check it out. It is just over a hundred miles from where we are now, at Sky City RV Park on the Acoma Pueblo land on I-40. Today was cold and cloudy and a long drive seemed okay.

It wasn’t that the drive was just long, the last 20 miles was a dirt road; “rough dirt…may be impassable in increment weather” according to the brochure we picked up after we got there.

And, oh yes, please share the road.

It was beautiful country…

but 20 miles is a long way on a rough dirt road.

When we finally got there I was surprised to find this nice entrance sign. I figured we’d come in a back way. At the welcome center they told me that the route we took was the best way in from the south. If you’re coming from the north there’s only eleven or twelve miles of unpaved road.

But, oh my, was it ever worth it. In 1987 this was designated a World Heritage Site. There are twelve sites in the park. We only had time to visit three. The ones we saw or drove by were all “great houses” built from 800 to 1250 CE. That is a huge red rock cliff, at the bottom you can see the brown structure.

This was Hungo Pavi, occupied from 1000-1250’s, and up close it was massive.

To build such large, multi-story buildings the Chacoan people used thick walls. The center cores were roughly shaped pieces of sandstone in a mud mortar.

The veneer on either side was made of intricately fitted stones, some large, but many small. As beautiful as these walls are, in use they were plastered, inside and out.

Logs were fitted to hold the floors. It was amazing to see the ends of these thousand-year-old logs.

The building was precise, still squared off 800 years after they left.

Next we visited the largest structure, Pueblo Bonito. It had over 600 rooms. The rubble lying to the right is part of the canyon wall, Threatening Rock, which collapsed in 1941.

These were some mighty boulders! This canyon wall must have been already split when the great house was built. They built a supporting masonry terrace against it and there were prayer sticks in the crevice between Threatening Rock and the canyon wall.

The only way I could capture all of Pueblo Bonita was with a video.

Some of the towering walls were stabilized.

But a lot of it was sturdily intact. You could go through the rooms…if you could fit through the doorways.

That’s a stone for grinding, probably corn.

That’s an unusual corner opening. This one let in the winter solstice sunrise.

The rooms went on and on.

There were large courtyards…

and many kivas. Having a round kiva in a square space was typical Chacoan architecture.

These structures on the kiva floor are also different from other culture’s kivas.

This is awe inspiring as a ruin, imagine what it would have been like a thousand years ago.

To see our last ruin we walked up this trail that Matey was allowed on, though he couldn’t go in the ruin. We had thought we’d go further to see some petroglyphs. The map had them marked at 0.8 miles, but a sign at the start of the trail said it was a 4 mile round trip, and we didn’t have time for that.

While Bud toured the ruin Matey and I checked out Chaco Wash, that runs down the center of the canyon.

It was dry now, with just a path of hoof prints down the center, but after a rainstorm it can run full, right up to the banks.

Tree ring data shows that the climate during the time of occupation was much as it is now. At its peak a thousand people might have lived here, while many more would have come for ceremonies. Those people must have known the land, water and weather to be able to sustain themselves.

Then it was my turn to explore. This site was Kin Kletso. A trail behind it let you get a bird’s eye view.

It may not look it, but this was also a huge space. Here’s Bud descending the trail.

Neither of us took the trail to the rim. It went through this crevice, you can see the trail marker at the base of the dark crevice.

You could only look inside this one,

but it had a bonus of petroglyphs on the boulder next to it.

On our way out we stopped at the Chacoan Stairway. This once must have been the trading or religious center for a huge region. Traces of these roads extend west almost to Arizona and north almost to Colorado.

I found the stairs! That’s taken at 15x; according to the sign those are 30 feet wide.

Then there was nothing left but the road back out. The only things that could have made this visit better were more time and Kenny Bowekaty as a guide!