[Impy]

Of course, the reason all the roads in are unpaved is to discourage a lot of tourist traffic.

I ha8 such anti-human polices.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I'm afraid in this case, I have to agree with the decision not to pave the 20 miles to the main roads. Chaco would be a nightmare with scores of tourists coming in and causing damage to the ruins. It's one of those places that you have to be willing to go the extra mile to see (and most usual tourists do not want to spend 4 hours driving 40 unpaved miles back and forth). When we went there in July 1993, there were only a modest number of people there, and tons of people would just detract from the experience.

I contrasted it with nearby Mesa Verde in SW Colorado which we went to the following evening, and that's paved up to the mesa top, and there were gargantuan numbers of people there at virtually every stop (and one segment of the park, closed to cars, which you had to take a tram car, still was full of people). Seeing it with fewer people would've made for a better experience. The only reason we were even able to get accommodations at the park lodge for two nights at the time was because the hantavirus scare was in full swing in that part of the country and people were cancelling reservations left and right, but even at that, the number of tourists were just off by a smidge of its usual large amount.