Monday morning rolled around and it was time to head out of Santa Fe. The plan was to circle back around the four corners area and see the parts of Colorado, Utah, and Arizona I'd missed on the way down to the Overland Expo. Armed with a bottle of Allsup's signature taco sauce and the book Flow-The Psychology of Optimal Experience, both gifts from Madison, I was off.
Great Sand Dunes National Park, CO
Great Sand Dunes NP is known for having the tallest sand dunes in North America. They are around 750 feet tall and pictures will never show you exactly how monstrous they are. If you like sand, you should come to this unforgettable sandbox as surely you will return home with the dunes in your clothes, car, and everything else you came into contact with during your visit. Do be careful though since the sand can reach 140 degrees Fahrenheit, which is basically hot enough to melt your feet.
Great Sand Dunes National Park
As you can see, there is a lot more to the park than the dunes themselves. All in all, there are seven unique life zones in the park: alpine trundra, subalpine, montane forest, dunefield, sand sheet & grassland, salt-encrusted plain or sabkha, and stream sides & wetlands. But, most people are attracted to Medano Creek, which wraps around the dunes on the east and south sides.
Aside from getting to play in the water of Medano Creek, Medano Creek is one of the few places in the world where you can experience "surge flow". Basically, the water in the creek flows in waves like waves in the ocean. This occurs because sand accumulates in small dunes on the creek bed which serve to trap the water. Eventually, the water pressure will be great enough to burst through dune creating waves up to one foot high every 20 seconds or so. In theory, you could probably cross the creek without getting too wet if you timed it just right between surges.
Surge flow
The late evening brought a gusty rain and tumbleweeds flying across the road and I gingerly made my way to the Rio Grande National Forest to spend the night. I'd read about a free campground up in the mountains and thought I'd give it a try. About 8 miles up a gravel road, I arrived at what I thought had an uncanny resemblance to the opening scene in The Sound of Music. Spring had just come to the mountain tops and the trees were just starting to bud. I set up camp in an open clearing.
Just below the tree line in June
Rio Grande National Forest, CO
Mesa Verde National Park, CO
Whether or not you are interested in ancient cultures, archaeology, anthropology, or anything of the sort, and you find yourself in southwest Colorado, Mesa Verde is definitely a place to visit. Maybe you've seen pictures of the cliff dwellings you find at Mesa Verde and probably heard the term Anasazi. Maybe you've heard it's a UNESCO Heritage Site. All that is here and more.
Cliff Palace
One really neat feature of the park is that they allow you to tour several of the cliff dwellings. The only way they let you tour them is with a guided tour led by a park ranger. The cost is $4 per tour, which is seriously affordable education/entertainment/exercise, in my opinion. Make sure to read the description of the hikes before signing up since some may require you to do things like...
This,
this,
and this.
Of the many things I learned here and would subsequently learn at every other Ancestral Puebloan ruins, here are a few of the highlights:
- No one knows why the people abandoned these dwellings. Everything about the Ancestral Puebloans is inferred from archaeological evidence and studies of how modern day Pueblo/Hopi live.
- The term Anasazi (a Navajo term meaning "ancestor of our enemies") is no longer the accepted name for the people who built these dwellings. They are called the Ancestral Pueblo. The reason for this change is because Anasazi is a term outsiders used to refer to the Puebloans, and it makes no sense for modern day descendants to want to call themselves that. This is similar to foreigner terms like eskimo, sioux, chippewa, etc which aren't the original names of those people.
- The Ancetral Puebloans believed that humans emerged from a hole in the earth and the sipapu (round hole in the floor of a kiva, a room used for religious rituals) symbolized that, kind of like the earth's belly button. Their origination story is actually more complex than this and is interesting to read about.
- The ruins can be dated because the original logs used in their construction were perfectly preserved due to being hidden in the cliff away from the elements.
The red dot would be the sipapu, the bigger circle is a fire pit
I ended up going on the Cliff Palace and Balcony House tours and I enjoyed both very much. There is other hiking to be had at Mesa Verde, but I had to move on (there wasn't any camping in the park), you know, after looking at this view for a hot minute.
Mesa Verde - means green table
Hovenweep National Monument, CO/UT
On a whim, I diverged from my planned course to drive from Mesa Verde to Arches National Park when I saw a brown road sign saying, "Hovenweep National Monument, Next Left". It really turned out to be a right because I had initially blasted by the intersection before realizing I wanted to take that left.
In the spirit of adventure, I ended up driving some 40 odd miles down a part-paved, part-graveled road with mega defects in the road. I have since learned that I should be a little more cautious about getting lured by seemingly benign road signs, but that story later. When I finally got to the monument, I was exhausted from the adrenaline rush from playing choose-which-set-of-twenty-potholes-you'd-rather-drive-on.
Hovenweep means "deserted valley" in the Ute language. The Ute and Navajo thought the area to be haunted and stayed away. But, I, like the Mormons who happened upon the area in 1854, did not stay away. I had a nice hike around the canyon while wondering why anyone would have ever wanted to live there.
One of the most interesting things about the Ancestral Puebloan ruins is that these structures were built over the course of 70-ish years. That level of commitment is incredible because that would have spanned generations of people. To top it off, it is not believed that any form of slave labor or indentured servitude was involved! All the stones were carved by hand, expertly fitted together, and built in such a way that the ruins have lasted some 800 years.
While Mesa Verde and Hovenweep are full of well preserved ruins, I wish I'd gone to Chaco Canyon, which I heard about after I'd left the area. It turns out that Chaco Canyon is the only ruin that has evidence to show their understanding of astronomy. Next time.
