The Animas and Mancos Rivers flow south from the Colorado Rockies and merge into the San Juan River in northwest New Mexico, eventually flowing west into Utah and the Colorado River. Ribbons of green mark the path these rivers take through the arid environment. Thousands of Ancestral Puebloans lived along the rivers and in the canyons above, reaching towards the Rio Grande Valley to the east as they expanded across the land. Many of these ancient sites are inaccessible to the Lunch Box, but we’re going to sample a few!
The heart of the Ancestral Pueblo lands was Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, roughly half-way between Aztec Ruins and El Morro in the map above. Chaco Canyon is unreachable in the Lunch Box (and most other visitors), protected by extremely rough dirt roads and a remote location. While Chaco Canyon was the ceremonial center of the Ancient Puebloans a number of “Great Houses” were built around northwestern New Mexico. Just outside of the town of Aztec, NM, Aztec Ruins National Monument (so-named by the Spanish explorers in their mistaken belief that the natives were an extension of the Aztec people of Mexico) protects the remains of one of the largest Great House’s outside of Chaco Canyon. Heading southeast from Cortez our path takes us through high desert before dropping down to the town of Aztec nestled in trees along the Animas River.
The Great House at Aztec was built roughly at the same time as the cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde and was also abandoned at about the same time, around 1300 AD. The pueblo consisted of a several multi-story great houses as well as a number of smaller pueblos in a community that measured approximately two miles long and one mile wide along the western bank of the Animas River. By the early 1100’s Aztec was the largest great house anywhere outside of Chaco Canyon. John Newberry is the first known European American to visit the site and when he arrived in 1859 he documented walls that were 25 feet high in places and many undisturbed rooms. By 1878 when anthropologist Lewis Morgan explored the site he estimated that about a fourth of the stone had been taken away and used by locals as building material. The site continued to be looted for materials and artifacts until 1889 when the ruins and surrounding land passed into private ownership. In 1916 Earl Morris led a team from New York City’s American Museum of Natural History as they excavated the great house known as “West Aztec” and in 1934 reconstructed the Great Kiva. The Visitor Center is housed in what once was the house that Morris lived in while excavating the ruins. He “borrowed” ponderosa beams which were already 800 years old from the ruins to use in the roof. The house was extensively remodeled by the National Park Service and now presents a pueblo façade to the public. The ruins rise immediately outside the back of the visitor center.
My path will take me in and around the pueblo, keeping in mind that this was only one of the several great houses that once stood along the river. The pueblo, known as “West Aztec”, is the only one which has been excavated.
Walking around the east corner the 1934 reconstructed Great Kiva comes into view on the right.
The interior of the Great Kiva has been restored as well.
The 400 rooms of the great house embrace the Great Kiva on three sides. A number of smaller kivas are contained in the large complex.
The winds of times past waft around and through the remnants of an earlier age.
A walk through the part of the interior begins through a small opening.
Once inside room after room unfolds, many with the original roof still intact.
The view from a small mound behind the ruins reviews shows a rear view of the back wall, which was solid with no openings on the ground level.
A diagram in the visitor center shows how Aztec West surrounds the Great Kiva and explains some of the rooms where the purpose has been able to be identified.
The importance of the site is magnified when one remembers that a matching great house rose on the other side of the Great Kiva in addition to other small pueblos in the vicinity. But, once again, all of this was only occupied for a hundred years or so before the Ancient Puebloans left the area around 1300 AD. Our next stop takes us across the high desert and mountains of northwestern New Mexico to a canyon on the edge of the Rio Grande Valley near Santa Fe.
An area eroded by the thunderstorms that frequent the area during the monsoon season interrupts the flow of the high desert.
Mountains begin to rise to the east.
Weaving through the mountains pine and juniper trees cloak the rough land.
Once through the mountains we emerge back into the high desert in the Rio Chama Valley.
The highway crosses the Abiqui Dam with the reservoir to our left and the river gorge to our right.
The valley widens as the Rio Chama flows towards its confluence with the Rio Grande but our path turns west away from the river valleys and into a land carved by an explosive volcano eruption near two million years ago.
Most of this land is on the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a remote area taken under government control in 1942 and used to house buildings for the design of nuclear weapons. The complex, centered in the town of Los Alamos but with numerous lab sites tucked away in the surrounding canyons and mesas, continues to do secret research on a variety of topics. As we weave through the canyons and mesas, incongruous buildings and equipment come and go. In this picture a large satellite dish rises above a canyon wall.
Little blue signs pop up identifying each of the lab installations by number.
The narrow road climbs along canyon walls until we begin to drop down into Frijoles Canyon, site of our next destination, Bandelier National Monument.
My path around the valley takes me from the visitor center up along the north wall of the canyon before descending back to the valley floor and returning to the visitor center. This old man is going to get a workout!
There were no roads into the canyon when Evelyn and George Frey made their way into the canyon in the 1920’s and opened a ranch called the “Lodge of the Ten Elders” on the valley floor opposite the cliff dwellings. The main lodge was surrounded by guest cabins, fruit trees, gardens and barns and pens for farm animals. In the 1930’s the Civilian Conservation Corps built the road into the canyon along with a visitor center and lodge farther down the canyon from the Freys. Mrs. Frey took charge of the new lodge and the original ranch buildings were destroyed. All that remains today is a foundation amongst the grass.
Our journey begins at the visitor center, closed today due to the Covid pandemic, so I walk around the west side and begin my trek up the valley along the cliffs in the background.
The walls of the canyon are composed of “tuff”, a compacted volcanic ash which, depending on how fast it cooled, ranges from very hard to very crumbly. Wind, rain and frost has eroded holes into the tuff surface. The valley floor is the site of Tyuonyi, once a multi-story pueblo of about 400 rooms. The pueblo is built around a central plaza with just one opening to the outside. Construction began around 1350 AD and it is likely that the original inhabitants were Ancestral Puebloans who were part of the exodus from the lands around Cortez and Aztec to the northwest. As I set out on the path a kiva sits amongst the low pueblo ruins nestled in the trees and grass.
The path gradually begins to climb towards the first cluster of cliff dwellings, Talus House.
I can see people up in the cliffs on the path that weaves along the ruins.
The path along the ruins is narrow and climbs up and down steep stairs. Occasionally a ladder allows access to the inside of a cave dwelling.
Turning around the view of the valley floor gives a much better idea of how Tyuonyi Pueblo unfolds in the meadow below.
Looking inside of one of the caves a sandy floor lies beneath a smoke-stained celling.
The path continues to weave along the face of the cliffs.
Once past Talus House a great view down the valley opens up. The entrance road can barely be seen climbing out of the valley in the distance.
Continuing along the path the trek becomes a bit more difficult!
Further along at Long House the Puebloans built out from the canyon wall, anchoring one end of their log ceiling beams into the cliff and resting the other on stone walls, sometimes rising two and three stories above the ground.
Fascinating look into the past. My path now finally descends to the valley floor and the walk back is considerably cooler through the trees!
Our next stop is on the other side of the Rio Grande Valley, about 25 miles east of Santa Fe. I am not stopping in Santa Fe this trip, for a look at Santa Fe check out Vol. 4 “Trekking to El Paso” Chapters 8a and 8b. As I head east a band of green marks the path of the Rio Grande River, once beyond it we climb into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
Once through the Glorietta Pass we quickly drop down into the Pecos River Valley with Glorietta Mesa in the distance.
Here, on a small bluff above Glorietta Creek, Pecos Pueblo guarded the entrance to the pass between the Rio Grande Valley and the eastern plains.
Pecos National Historic Park
A thriving pueblo with towers rising four and five stories, home to nearly 2,000 people, greeted the Spanish explorer Hernando de Alvarado here in 1540. Missionaries arrived soon after and tried to convert the locals, initially with mixed results. In 1621 Fray Andres Juarez arrived with a more accepting approach and for a period of time relationships between the natives and missionaries improved. A large church was built in 1625 but poor treatment by the Spanish authorities undermined the good works of the friars leading to a revolt in 1680. The original church was destroyed and the Spanish momentarily defeated but they returned in 1692 with a more humane government. A second church and extensive mission was built in 1717. In the meantime was and disease had decimated the native populations and the pueblo went in to decline. Today Pecos Pueblo, mostly unexcavated, rises as a low hill above the valley with the ruins of the 1717 church at the southern base.
Atop the mound the northern pueblo has been partially excavated with the south pueblo across a plaza has not.
The entire pueblo once had nearly 600 rooms with elevated porches serving as walkways for the upper stories. The view across the top of the hill is across the plaza to the unexcavated pueblo on the south.
Below the south pueblo are the mission grounds. Sketches show how the two churches appeared. On the left is the mission built in 1625, later destroyed in the revolt of 1680. One the right is the rebuilt, smaller mission of 1717. These are the ruins we see today. Both had a large “convento” attached to it. The convento housed the mission staff, offices, storerooms and workrooms.
This picture taken at the southwest corner of the shows a stone wall from the original 1625 mission below the towering walls of the 1717 church.
I am struck by the width of the massive church walls.
Attached to the east side of the church are the remains of the convento.
The convento was built around a central courtyard, the original drainage canal angles off to the outside. The drain led to a cistern, necessary for storing the precious water.
The church and convento were made out of adobe brick, highly susceptible to erosion so the smooth tops of the walls that you see are an effort to “seal” the bricks and slow the erosion. The tent covers a location currently being restored and protected while unrestored livestock pen walls are in the distance.
A last view encompasses the livestock pens in the foreground, convento in the middle, and church rising in the rear.
Interstate 40 leads west across the high desert of central New Mexico until we reach the small town of Grants, where we take a brief detour into the rugged land south of the interstate
A row of sandstone cliffs in the distance marks the location of our last stop in New Mexico, El Morro National Monument.
El Morro National Monument
Prior to the building of the railroad in the late 1800’s and the highway in the 1920’s along a more direct path north of here, all traffic west from Albuquerque to Arizona passed through El Morro because at the base of the cliff is the only permanent source of water for thirty miles. The pool of fresh water is not a spring, but is fed by rain during the monsoon season (July-September) and melting winter snows. When full the pool is about twelve feet deep and holds approximately 200,000 gallons of water. Ancestral Puebloans built a pueblo on top of the cliff above the pool. Approximately 1,500 people lived in the pueblo around 1300 AD. One can climb up the cliff to the pueblo ruins but this old man is satisfied to copy a picture from a brochure!
Spanish explorers first documented visiting the pool of water in 1583, christening the landmark “El Morro”, which is Spanish for “headland.” Thousands of travelers followed in their wake over the next 300 years. Heading up the trail from the visitor center parking lot the cliffs reach towards the sky. The black streaks on the rock are minerals left by the water crashing down the cliffs.
Approaching the cliffs an alcove is revealed which holds the pool of water at its base.
The pool of water seems a bit small for something that had such importance to the history of the people who passed through this arid land.
While the calm pool of water in such a stunning setting is certainly an attraction, it is not the main reason tourists travel to the remote location. The path continues north beyond the pool along the base of the sandstone cliffs and the main attraction is revealed.
The arrival of the Spanish in 1583 heralded the beginning of nearly 300 years of visits by travelers on their way west. Each group left a small souvenir of their stop by inscribing names and dates in the sandstone, reminding me that they once stood in this same spot. The sense of history is almost overwhelming as the wind rustles through the surrounding trees just as it did hundreds of years ago. There are thousands of messages inscribed on these walls, here are just a few…
America Frances Bailey (A. F. Bailey) was part of a wagon party heading to California in 1858 when she carved her name into the cliff.
Continuing on I see carvings from the early Spanish expeditions. The block inscription on the left was done by Ramon Garcia Jurado in 1709 and translated says “On the 25th of the month of June of this year of 1709, Ramon Garcia Jurado passed through here on the way to Zuni.” The linear carving on the right (blackened by graphite in an effort by early park rangers to make the carvings more distinct, a practice discontinued in the early 1930’s), reads “Pedro Romero passed through here on the 2nd of August, year of 1751.”
The carvings go on and on, occasionally interspersed with pictographs from even earlier times…
This picture captures a span of over 150 years. On the top right is an inscription left by an early Spanish frontier governor in 1692, stating “General Don Diego de Vargas, who conquered for our Holy Faith and for the Royal Crown, all over New Mexico, at his own expense, was here, in the year of 1692.” More than 150 years later members of the first emigrant train to attempt this route to California, P. H. Williamson and Isaac Holland, recorded their names in 1858 just below the Spanish inscription.
These are just a very small sample of the many inscriptions along the cliff walls. As I turn away from the cliffs I take one last look along the cliffs past the signature walls and up the cliffs towards what brought them all here, the pool of water…
What a fascinating stop off the beaten track! Leaving El Morro the high desert and mesas of western New Mexico stretch towards the horizon.
Past the town of Gallup, NM, the highway follows along the Little Colorado River Valley between the mesas and in the distance the high desert plains of Arizona being to unfold.
Next up: Petrified Trees and the Grand Canyon
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