CHACO CANYON AND ARCHES NATIONAL PARK

From Taos to Chaco doesn't look so far on the map. But those last thirty miles from US 550 at the Neegesi junction into Chaco, took us about ninety minutes! Talk about washboard road, this baby had ridges, ranges, drop holes and mud wadis. A shake down cruise takes on new meaning here! Bone rattling!

We camped in the national park -- flush toilets, showers, but no electrical hookups, true in all national campgrounds, with a view out our site of two old pueblo ruins located right behind us, most likely farm houses, like many we would see around the valley. But here we were, right in the middle of it! And the sunset, the sunrise! Fantastic! Say that like a Frenchman -- fan TAS TIC!

Chaco was home to an ancient Pueblo people, generally refered to as Anasazi, though that is losing some cache now. The desolate canyon was once home to a thriving, one might say, metropolitan settlement, even city, of several thousand people. Exactly how many is disputed, but it is generally agreed that on the many ceremonial celestial and lunar occasions the canyon was crowded with peoples from many different outlying pueblos and communities, who practiced somewhat different cultural and religious traditions. But something here drew them together. Might have been an earlier version of an interfaith gathering! Scholars have been working on that magnetic something, that mysterious call, for over a century now, and some insights are coming to light.

The largest of the Great Houses here, Pueblo Bonito,

contained between six hundred and seven hundred rooms, reaching a height of between four and five stories. And there are eleven of these great houses stretching on both sides of the Chaco river ravine! Two of them are on top of the 600 foot mesa! Can you imagine the amount of stone cutting, stone shaping, moving, lifting, placing, to say nothing of the meticulous designs and incredible celestial and lunar layouts! And we think we are smart!

Not only that, they had to irrigate to grow their food from snow melt, a slowly lowering water table and a sometimes river. They had to move water from mesa top, from floods, through waterworks, down canyon walls, into cisterns, houses, latrines and corn and bean fields. It is an amazing, complex and detailed accomplishment, along with the great houses, their precise sitings and complex solar and lunar orientations.

Pueblo Bonito, the grandest, sits on a perfect north-south axis, and is shaped like a half moon, a half circle, with its flat side perfectly oriented east to west. Several others of the great houses on the canyon floor are also sited to these cardinal points. But then it is discovered that some are also sited to the phases of the moon, nine lunar years in one direction and nine for the return, a lunar calendar of eighteen years. Between the solstice orientations of Bonito and its sister/brother centers, and the lunar orientations of the other great houses, there is an infallible calendar, by day, week, season, and year on an eighteen year cycle. It is the perfect center of the world! Now a UNESCO World Heritage site, Bonito and the Chaco Canyon are a rare American place of reflection and wonder -- and there are not a lot of tourists!

We took the Pueblo Bonito excursion with Penny, our intern and guide. She is going on to graduate study in law and ecology. An easy one and a half hour tour with just enough time to catch some of the detail of masonry styles across four hundred years, as well as
the famous "T" doors, large plazas and great kivas.

The next day we joined Jeff, also an intern, majoring so far in philosophy and with a deep interest in anthropology. He led us on a four and a half hour hike from the canyon floor, up through steep rock crevasses, to the top of the mesa, about 655 feet above. We looked down on Pueblo Bonito, at the midden mounds filled with pottery shards around Pueblo Alto, at the top of the mesa, built about the time of Bonito, and Pueblo Nueva Alto, built late in the twelfth century and perhaps never inhabited. Why build up here? Could they capture more water on the top of the mesa? Late in this period of occupancy, was water more available here than down below? But one of these mesa-top great houses was almost as old as Bonito, and two were quite new, twelfth or early thirteenth century edifices. And what were those post holes dug in perfectly cylindrical shape into the limestone at the top of the mesa? Were they welcome signs to the pilgrims coming for the solstice? Were they clan icons, signifying where to gather? Were they casino signs or Holiday Inn-like signs? Who knows!

In addition to religious rituals, how did this canyon and mesa community keep an economy going? Did they sell heavenly promises? Heal the sick and crippled? Sell quick, convenient meals? Rent rooms? Gamble and drink and ingest peyote? Sell foods and pottery and souvenirs for the trip back home? What of the parrot feathers, the Meso American items? How big was their trading network? Were these rare goods part of the exotic appeal? Makes us curious about the inventiveness and depth of the human enterprise, right here in our own backyard, as it were.

Well you have to go home sometime -- well maybe -- but we thought that first we would take a good look at one of the Utah canyon lands treasures. We chose Arches, and what a good choice it turned out to be. We stayed at a great RV/campground on the north side of Moab. Paragon? Shucks, haven't found the receipt. And I forget. But it was clean, beautiful, the trees were just turning shimmering gold, lit up by the sun beaming in from the top of the mountains. We asked our hosts about a good place to eat and they referred us to the local brew pub, just on the south side of the downtown area, which turned out to be a great place. Our enthusiastic waiter, Mark, clued us in on the brews, the homemade salad dressings, and the hot items. He was right on and we had a darn good meal, some local N.M. wine, and a good laugh or two.

The next day we took off up the canyon walls and found our first trail, a walk down The Boardwalk, a short hike down into the canyon and back, about 1 1/2 miles. The early light was great and the red rock statues, the three ladies/wise men/guardians, were resplendent with color. We ventured on up the mesa and down and up and down, stopping many times to view the magnificent vistas.

We persisted to the end of the road and up the trail to The Delicate Arch. It is the one on the Utah license plates, kind of an icon you might say. Hmmm. How good could that be? Damn good! Awesome -- Oh, I hate that, too! Well, hmm, where's the Thesaurus? How about "dominating the landscape"? How about perfectly balanced, with a circular bowl around it that drifts gently down at one side to form what could be the interior of a chambered nautilus, or a perfect oyster shell set on a slope? Or the flowing gentle pool

you always wanted to slip into? Gorgeous blue sky, a few daunting, curious, awed visitors from Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada, three Caribbean guys, and us. And a giant Raven whose nest was just over our heads, complaining loudly about our disturbance of its day.

Another long walk, up more than 550', most of it on bare limestone rock. Four sore calves the next day! And the next! But thanks to the universe for such beauty, form, color, and our feelings of wonder, surprise, delight and appreciation. Yes! And for all the countless saints that preceded us. Yes!

Two days of Arches and then a rush back to Boise, the comforts of home, and the responsibilities of home owners. Oh Darn! Ahh, but it was good to slip into that comfy bed and wake up to that espresso in the morning.

More to follow: People, and Wandering Thoughts.