Posted on 02/02/2009 9:59:00 PM PST by george76
If you’d stayed the night camping the temperature demands
a jacket at night. Chaco’s elev is 6100+ ft.
For neat reading that includes Chaco I recommend
Tony Hillerman’s “A Thief of Time”.
The history of commerce is fascinating.
Is the north road closed ?
It was a dirt / high clearance / jeep road last time we were there.
The astronomy is fun to think about there.
Good rock art . Not just pretty pictures.
The lunar stand still site in Colorado is fun.
The trading from the Pacific Ocean, Mexico, Mn, and more was apparently quite active.
Mmmmmmmm chocolate. Historic Chaco Canyon chocolate even ;o)
I love raw cacao powder and hot creole chocolate tea in the morning!
http://www.nps.gov/band/
I wish I could have stayed overnight. I was on my way from Santa Fe to Phoenix. Got up at the crack of dawn (still on east coast time) and drove out...its in the middle of nowhere. Spent most of the day and drove on.
It is certainly on the list of places where I want to spend more time. Its an amazing place.
There is a north access road, but it now leads into the east end of the park. The one we took at the time led into the west end (State Route 57), and if you look at the atlas, that road has apparently since been closed (actually, one atlas shows it is closed, another says it still exists, and yet a 3rd one says “closed to traffic”). We took a regular car on that washboard road (which at the time, the atlases stated was OK to do), but I think it actually did some damage to the car, we ended up having to get a new car just 6 months later. IIRC, it took about 2 hours each way just to drive the 26 or so miles back and forth.
Of course, the reason all the roads in are unpaved is to discourage a lot of tourist traffic. The Park Service only wants people that absolutely wish to see those spectacular ruins and not just folks coming in on a lark, especially in their Battle Cruiser Winnebagos. It’s a pain, but I can understand.
The following day we drove up to Hovenweep (now under the “Canyon of the Ancients”), and the maps showed the route in on the Utah side as unpaved, but we were pleasantly surprised to find the road into the one segment was paved (apparently the atlases still show the road as unpaved, probably requested by the Park Service again, so as to discourage people, as with Chaco). Drove over from Hovenweep to nearby Mesa Verde and spent two days on the mesa top. All great sites.
Yes, the McDonald Observatory visitors’ center is based (loosely) on Chaco.
Chocolate is used as an ingredient in chili like dishes.
It was not the sweetened candy of today.
When Chaco was abandoned, the community may have moved along the Chaco meridian three times. Twice north to Soloman and then too Aztec. The move south was into what is now Mexico and all kinds of stuff from further south was present. There was major trade with the south.
Ancient Pueblo Great House Yielding Unexpected Findings ( note the twin towers in Bluff, too )
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/1998-05/UoCa-APGH-190598.php
The Bluff site is thought to be one of about 150 Chacoan “outlier” sites that were connected to Chaco Canyon
http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2002/276.html
Roughly 150 Chaco “outliers” up to hundreds of miles distant ...
“Things started to happen in Chaco in the 9th century,” said Lekson. “At that time, small settlements outside the canyon were fighting with each other. With the rise of Chaco, that raiding and feuding ended.”
http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/spew4th.pl?ascribeid=20030217.065820&time=1332PST&year=2003&public=1
Back in 1982 or so I traveled Hwy 57 from the south pulling a travel trailer. I came across a BLM truck that had yards of barbed wire wrapped around the rear axle. I had a chain cutter along and we got it free in short order. I asked: How did that happen?” The answer: “The people that live along this road don’t want tourists using it!”
Be aware of local IBWD’s. (IBWD = Improvised Barded Wire
Devices)
We went in ‘93. Good thing that didn’t happen to us or we’d have been stuck for a good long while ! As I recall, we could barely do maybe 12 or so MPH on the road (you can go faster than that on a gravel drive).
See my Post #35. (Forgot to add you (col) to the list.
Traveling out there in the great beyond of the SW is a real experience BUT you have to be prepared. The SW is the great
unexplored of this Great Nation.
Navajos aka Apaches ...Athabaskan speakers also living in Alaska
This will get even worse soon.
.
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