Ghosts in Chaco Canyon

In the remote northwest corner of New Mexico at the end of a rough county road is a rarely-visited national park, Chaco Culture National Historic Park. The ruins in the area represent an amazing period of Ancient Pueblo culture.

Kelly’s thoughts…

Although we have explored much of the region around the park, we’ve not visited Chaco much. I had wanted to try one of the more back-country hikes for some time, so on a beautiful winter day in December with the kids available to go, we made the trek out to Peñaso Blanco and the Supernova Pictograph. Even though the park is rarely visited anyway, as we expected, a Friday in December meant only a few, committed people joined us in the area.

Chaco is an amazing jewel of a site. Here, preindustrial people built huge structures out of stone, “great houses,” with multistory dwellings and many kivas, some of which, “great kivas,” could hold as many as 400 people. As many as 5000 people are thought to have lived in the canyon at its height. The Great Houses of Chaco were the largest structures built by people in North America before the 19^th century.

The area was most populous between about AD 900-1150. At this time, great roads traversed the region between Chaco and other communities including the people at what are now Salmon and Aztec Ruins to the north some 40 miles away. Archaeological work in the area has created a rich knowledge of these people derived from many thousands of artifacts, campsites, burial sites, petroglyphs and the great houses. These Ancient Puebloans may have continued to develop what was an amazing civilization except for exceptional drying of the southwest. A 50 year drought began in about 1130 that led to abandonment of Chaco Canyon and much of the Southwest for areas with more reliable water.

Our walk was about 7.5 miles round trip and led us by many hundreds of petroglyphs and amazing canyon views. At the western end we found the famous “Supernova Pictograph,” a star next to a crescent moon with a hand nearby. This is thought to represent the supernova event beginning in July, 1054 AD that resulted in what is now the Crab Nebula.

The farthest point of our hike was the great house, Peñasco Blanco, which is on a mesa top rather than on the floor of the canyon. A beautiful dwelling, we explored around the abandoned walls admiring their construction, and we found many pot shards.

It was a wonderful day with our people in an incredible part of the Southwest. There’s much more to explore in the park, so we may look for another pleasant, under-visited winter day to check out more of the region.

Riki’s thoughts…

The weather was brisk and a bit windy when we started out, but a chance to explore in the short days of winter cannot be passed up, and a hat and gloves on the girls kept us from feeling the weather until the sun broke through the clouds and warmed the air to breezy low-50’s. The walk was mostly flat, until the scramble out of the canyon to reach the ruins on the ridge. The canyon trail was pretty sandy, so we were feeling the walk in our calves before we finished. The walk seemed to not phase Kelly, who seems to be able to walk endlessly when he is in his beloved nature, whether mountain or desert.

We walked by a number of lovely ruins on our way to the farthest point up the valley. We may go back and explore those later. It was about a year ago when Kelly and I were in Chad. We saw many amazing panels of petroglyphs and some caves with evidence of habitation. The people in Northern Chad were living very much the same way as they have for hundreds of years, simple nomadic herding. In northwest New Mexico, the region we visited is surrounded by scattered simple dwellings, some lacking electricity and indoor plumbing. It is sometimes easy to forget that even in the United States, not everyone lives surrounded by modern comforts. I was left conflicted by what I saw, not sure what my response should be to such realities. I settled into feeling a deeper level of gratitude for the lovely home to which we returned late yesterday afternoon.

I was also struck by the complexity of the lives lived by those that dwelled in these beautiful ruins. They built roads and multi-story structures. They traded deep into Mexico and west to the ocean. They had highly-developed social and religious structures. There was more water when the canyon was in its prime. Some say that drought was what caused the people to board up their homes and move away. I wonder if they hoped to return when the rains came back. The people that came to the New World five hundred years after these communities were developed brought with them new innovations, domesticated livestock, seeds for crops never grown here. But those that lived in the canyon were brilliant in their use of the resources that surrounded them. I found myself questioning some old preconceptions about first-world vs. third-world cultures.

It was a lovely day, a long walk through the desert, and a day that made me think and re-think. I came away thoughtful and grateful and well-exercised.

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