Chaco Culture National Historic Park

Chaco Culture National Historical Park contains the densest and most exceptional concentration of pueblos in the American Southwest.  It is located about a 2 hour drive northeast of Gallup, or about a 1.5 hour drive southwest from Farmington, in northwestern New Mexico, in a remote canyon cut by the Chaco Wash. Containing the most sweeping collection of ancient ruins north of Mexico, the park preserves one of the United States' most important pre-Columbian cultural and historical areas. These lands are sacred to many Native American tribes, each of whom can legitimately claim the Chaco people as their ancestors, or whose people are known to have migrated through or traded at the Great Houses in Chaco Canyon.  Native Americans believe their ancestors still inhabit these ruins, and a visit to these sites is filled with deep emotion for people who feel the presence of their forbears.

From 850-1150 AD, Chaco Canyon was a major center of culture for the Ancient Pueblo Peoples. Chacoans quarried sandstone blocks and hauled timber from great distances, assembling fifteen major complexes that remained the largest buildings in North America until the 19th century.

Experts are still uncertain what the purpose of these great pueblos was, or how many people occupied them, but from available evidence, it is thought that relatively few people lived full-time in the complexes - perhaps as few as 60-100 individuals.  But periodically, or perhaps during all seasons, the complexes appear to have served as trade and ceremonial centers, drawing thousands of people from many tribal nations to trade and celebrate.

There are two approaches to the Park - one from the north involving a very rough, wash-boardy dirt road of about 4 miles length - and another from the south requiring an 18-mile drive over hilly dirt road.  We drove in from the south over the longer dirt road, but, due to heavy rains while we were at the Park, we took rangers' advice to drive out to the north.  We found the longer, southerly route to be much less rough during dry weather, but we would never try it when it is wet, because there would be a substantial chance of sliding and slipping off the road into ditches.  Further, the southerly road has some crests requiring higher than average clearance.

Here's a photo of a typical flat section of the road we faced driving in:

The scenery driving in is particularly dramatic.  Here is an unusual rock formation --

-- and some of the typical red sandstone cliffs we passed --



-- and, just around a corner from the reddish cliffs, some very greenish cliffs!

The entrance sign for the Park is in a dramatic setting and invites one in to explore:

Our first stop was the Visitor Center, where a large relief map helped us orient ourselves for the 9-mile driving loop.  There are five significant sets of ruins just along the road, with many more accessible on back-country hiking trails.

We had gotten a late start, and rain threatened later in the afternoon, so we didn't have anywhere near as much time as we would have liked to explore the various ruins.  We had to pick one, and the ranger suggested Pueblo Bonito, the largest and best preserved, where a ranger walk would be held at 2:00 pm.  We drove down to Pueblo Bonito, and this was our first glimpse of it, set against the sandstone cliffs:

If you look closely in the photo above, you'll see a large rubbled pile of boulders between the pueblo and the cliff.  This pile is the remains of a section of the cliff, known as "Threatening Rock," which collapsed onto the canyon floor in 1941, smashing and covering up the northern section of the pueblo.  A National Geographic photographer accompanied a geologic team that was hoping to document the collapse of the section of the cliff wall.  While the photographer got photos of the aftermath, he was unfortunately changing the film in his camera when the collapse actually occurred, and he missed the event itself.

Here is a closer look at part of the ruins, with the cliff in the background.

Pueblo Bonito appears to have been the largest of these "great houses," and seems to have been positioned so that travelers crossing a pass into the canyon from the south would see it first. Undoubtedly, it was meant to impress visitors.

It is divided into two sections by a precisely aligned wall, which runs north to south through the central plaza. Interior living spaces were quite large by the standards of the Ancient Pueblo.  The site covers 3 acres and incorporates approximately 800 rooms. In parts of the village, the tiered structure was four and five stories high. During later construction, some lower level rooms were filled with debris to better support the weight of the upper levels. The massive masonry walls are as much as 3 feet thick.

While it is possible to walk around the ruins yourself, with the help of walking tour booklets if you choose, we decided to take advantage of the ranger walk.  Here, the ranger is leading a discussion about the ruins and the various uses that might have been made of the Great House and its rooms:

The ruins contain two Great Kivas arranged in a symmetrical pattern common to many of the Great Houses. In addition to the Great Kivas, over thirty other kivas or chave been found, many also associated with the large central courtyard. Some may have been ceremonial, but many kivas may have had other or multiple uses.   Here is a photo of one of the Great Kivas.  It was so large, we couldn't fit the entire kiva into the camera frame:

By 3:30, when the ranger talk ended, the skies were threatening and it had started raining.  We decided we had better high-tail it out before even the northern 4-mile dirt road became too slippery to drive.  As we drove around the loop, however, we spotted this herd of elk grazing in Chaco Wash below us, with the northern canyon wall in the background:

We were glad we took the northern exit route, even though this added nearly 2 hours to our drive, because we encountered several rainstorms along the way.  We decided to have dinner in Farmington, and took the advice of our friends Ginny and Eric to stop at Three Rivers Brewery:

The food was top-notch and the beers are very tasty!  This brewery offers take-home growlers, as many do, but it also offered what it calls "crowlers" - 32 oz. large cans, just perfect for 2 pints of beer to share later!  Kathy was so excited by this novel container idea, that she asked the bartender who canned our take-home beer to pose with her for a photo:

We finally got home around 9:15 pm, exhausted more from the drive than from our physical exertions at the national park.  We fell into bed and slept the sleep of the ancestral dead.