Thinking that Janet's dental problems were behind us, we set out to explore more archaeological sites of the ancestral Puebloans. This time we wanted to do a circuit of the Chaoan related sites: Chimney Rock, CO; Aztec, NM; Salmon Ruins, NM; and Chaco Canyon itself. We had also planned to head over to NE Arizona to Canyon de Chelly and Betatakin/Kiet Seel in Navajo National Monument.
The Chimney Rock ruins site is an hour and a half east of Mesa Verde. It is on the Southern Ute Reservation and, in fact, we camped overnight at a Ute campground: Lake Capote.
It was a very quiet place with few campers. Overnight the temperature dropped to 41 degrees, and we had a clue why there were few other campers. Of course, we were at a high elevation. Still, some adjustments will be necessary before we camp to that degree again.
We could see our destination from the campground.
In fact, our destination can be seen all up and down the Piedra River Valley in the San Juan Mountains. This photo was taken 15 miles downstream after we left Chimney Rocks.
The Piedra is a major contributor to the San Juan River basin, all of which was dominated by the Chaco Canyon culture in the 1000s and 1100s.
We arrived for the first tour at 9:30 a.m. Lucky for us, because we were the only two people on the tour. All the tour guides at Chimney Rock are volunteers, because this is not a national park service site (yet), although on the National Historical Register and for 25 years a World Cultural Heritage Site of the United Nations. Our tour guide, Wayne, had been a pharmaceutical salesman in a previous life. But now that he is retired, he has become a self-educated expert on Chimney Rocks and ancestral Puebloan culture. He could not talk fast enough or swap information more enthusiastically once he realized that we knew what he was talking about.
A gravel road led up the mountain for two miles to a "Great Kiva.," 44 feet in diameter.
This reveals that the site was a ceremonial center for the Piedra valley settlements.
Wayne pointed out the Pueblo I and II settlements that lined a ridge just north of the ridge that we were about to climb.
Actually, the whole valley is thick with unexplored sites.
Twin rocks were always susceptible to sacred interpretation. (Remember Bluff Navajo Twins and the Bear's Ears?) But these are more spectacular twins.
To get there, one has to climb up a narrow isthmus about 1500 feet (says Wayne) above the plateau below.
Why would anyone build a huge "Great House" way out on a ledge?
Defense and/or deliberate inaccessibility. Imagine the labor involved in building it, maintaining it, and feeding and watering the residents. Even the crows thought we were crazy.
The Great House
was big and covered the entire area in front of the twin spires.
Typical Chaco-style place.
(In fact, archaeologists have come to believe that Chacoans created it as an "outlier" to supply Chaco Canyon Great Houses with lumber--down the San Juan. Signal fires from Chimney Rock can be relayed at night by means of several other outliers all the way, 150 miles east to Chaco; it was an instant telecommunication system. Enemies?)
In 2007, scores of archaeologists and prominent visitors stood where we were standing, including Wayne himself. Something happened at Chimney Rocks that will not occur again for several years. Every 18.6 years (the lunar cycle), the moon rises exactly between the two twin spires.
This is known as the Major Lunar Standstill. Many ancient cultures regarded this event as a sacred moment in the cycle of time. Wayne spoke eloquently about the thrill that he got witnessing it, and even the archaeologists were moved.
The 10:30 tour was on its way up, so we had to head down.
We made it. The weather warmed up too.
A few days later, in Durango, CO, I picked up a newspaper which featured a story that Obama will probably bypass Congress and make Chimney Rocks a National Monument by presidential proclamation. Wayne will be pleased.
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