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RIO GRANDE RIVER:
Taos, & Rio Grande Gorge, New Mexico:
Moving north it’s not long before arriving in
Taos, New Mexico. On our way we stopped on
the outskirts of Espanola at a hamburger joint.
Some where we had read about how good they
were. They were ok, but didn’t compare to the
Best Hamburger Ever from Wyoming.
Taos may be the choice of retirees over Santa Fe
because it hasn’t been inundated with people, yet
is a fun artsy place. We visited a couple of art
galleries and moved on towards Chama, NM.
Outside of Taos is the Rio Grande Gorge. It’s
on the high plains, yet has dug a deep gorge into
them. There was a heavy rain storm, maybe the
only kind on the plains, as we left Taos.
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The ground absorbs as much as it can, but that is
not enough to stop the streams of water that flow
down the hills creating long waterfalls into the
Rio George.
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The gorge is on route 64 which we’re taking to
stay in the mountains outside of Chama, before
heading into Colorado. This stop wasn’t on our
schedule, and we never stay on the roadside.
There has only been one other time we’ve stayed
alongside the road, regardless of how many
friends we know that have and do.
Many of them carry fire arms, shot guns and
revolvers. We don’t and probably never will.
Our most explosive weapon is a bear spray.
We’ve never used it for security, yet each time
we’ve tried we’ve sprayed ourselves.
Unfortunately, carrying a weapon for security is
not high on our list.
We reached the top of this beautiful mountain,
and on both sides of us was this forest. Looking
back toward where we came from was a large
grassy meadow. Several hundred yards to the
bottom where a couple of deer grazing along the
edge. It was so beautiful it caught our breath.
On the other side of the road, several hundred
feet from us was another camper. Beyond them
the sun was setting in an array of pinks and
oranges.
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RIO GRANDE RIVER:
Wolf Creek Pass, Continental Divide,
Colorado:
Tomorrow, we will head down the mountain
through Chama to Pagosa Springs. On our way
across the Continental Divide and down the
western slope before entering Colorado. This
will be the beginning of a back and forth trip
from the waters that flow from one mountain to
the Gulf or if on the other side into the Pacific.
Welcome to Colorado, the Wild Water State.
Following the Rio Grande isn’t complete, but it’s
just the beginning.
Pagosa Springs is in one end of a valley that runs
west past Durango, Mesa Verde to Cortez. Now
that we are on the western side of the continent
we crossed a meaningful tributary to the Great
Colorado River, the San Juan. It flows out of the
mountains that border this valley; called the San
Juan Primitive Area.
We are following US route 160 up a really steep
climb to Wolf Creek Pass. It’s only 10,500 feet,
and the climb fortunately had a passing lane.
That’s good news as we often slow to about 30
miles an hour before reaching the top of these
long high roads.
Here Arlene stands at the great divide near the
top, 2,000 feet higher. She straddles the divide,
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with one foot on each side. The map behind
explains it all.
Going down these mountains isn’t any easier
than going up. We traversed so many switch
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Rio Grande Natural Wilderness Area,
Colorado:
backs that we lost count before we reached South
Fork and the Rio Grande.
From here we’ll drive along the Rio Grande River
into the Rio Natural Wilderness Area, and
Creede, Colorado, where we’ll meet Betsy again
at the General Store.
You can see from the countryside that Creede
wasn’t much of a town. The General Store was
easy to find. It sold everything you would ever
want, including the most indispensable item of
all, Ice Cream. Yum! Yum!
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We drove along the riverside, on the Silver
Thread Highway, to our weekend The Silver
Thread Campground.
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In the wilderness mountains there were many
trails and back roads. With our RV and Nova we
really couldn’t get very far on most of them.
Brian’s station wagon, as tough as it was couldn’t
handle them either. So if we thought we’d take
one of the ‘over-the-mountain’ trails to Silverton
or the road to the ‘20 inch trout’ lake, we
couldn’t. Instead our first foray was to the falls
nearby camp. A short hike, and Wow!.
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Our long weekend days passed with a little
fishing. Arlene caught a small fry, about the size
of her hand while everyone else watched. Arlene
One, the rest of us Zero. Despite our efforts that
would be the way it went.
Further up the valley along a bulldosed dirt road
we came to the Rio Grande Reservoir.
There was so little water. Several seasons of low
snow fall had withered the reservoir down to less
than half full.
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By the time we’d driven past the main reservoir
there was only a thin stream that ox-bowed
across the wide grassland, growing on the valley
floor.
The river forked, and we took the north fork up
a ways before we stopped to fish.
The Rio Grande, at it’s mouth runs clear and
beautiful as any mountain trout steam in your
dreams should.
Arlene with her rusty red waders casts along it’s
shore. She never caught anything, but how she
loved being at the source of this great river.
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Brian gave us one last lesson while we fished
along the Rio. Before he had dipped our flies in
silicone to keep them afloat. Now in addition to
the silicone, he added a bobber. The stream was
too swift to keep the fly above the water, so the
bobber helped.
He also told us about how well the fish could see,
and that they faced toward the current. If there
was a pool they would probably be on the sides.
We should begin fishing the close side, before
crossing the pool to the far side.
This information was really good news to us, but
we needed to concentrate on our casting.
We would leave Besty and Brian after a great
weekend. We enjoyed them and appreciated all
the time they took with us.
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This weekend was also the end of our journey
along one of Colorado’s great rivers.
THE RIO GRANDE is over 1,900 miles long,
beginning in the Wilderness Area of Colorado’s
13,000 foot peaks. Collecting enough water in
the valley to create a reservoir, as it flows across
the eastern mountain divide toward New Mexico,
and Texas.
Nineteen or more rivers contribute to it’s waters,
across these states. Several notable ones are The
Red, and Pecos Rivers of Movie fame. The Rio
Monchos, which we have camped along often
contributes the most additional water.
We have seen the river from it’s mouth where it
runs clear and wild to where it collects so much
sand and debris that it runs gray with mud along
the border of Mexico.
It has never been a navigatable river, and we’ve
read that the delta at Brownsville has filled with
sand often beyond entry. Even with a strong
current and dredges it stays open only for a short
while.
Here is a map of the river as it flows from
Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico, across three
states.
What a swell experience it’s been for us to
traverse along so much of it’s shore, and visit so
many cities and towns that it has created.
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The Rio Grande snakes it’s way through
three states. The Pecos River is it’s largest
tributary.
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We’ve always wanted a four wheel jeep or 4x4 to
drive around the deserts. Imagine driving up the
draws in Big Bend, or across the wide open areas
of the Great Plains. Half of Colorado is desert,
what they call the plains. Instead of bee lining
across them we could have been off road.
Once we get into the mountains we don’t usually
think about those vehicles much. However, after
our visit to the Rio Grande Wilderness we once
again began wishing for the ability to travel some
of those trails and back roads. We’d settle for
bright yellow, not ‘camo’, nor red, n 4X4.
These mountains surrounding us are the highest
in Colorado. The San Juan Mountains and
Forest, and the Rio Grande area have 28 peaks
over 12,000 feet.
Once called the mineral belt for gold, silver,
uranium, and copper it is now a tourists area.
Yet, as we see the devastation from the mining,
still persists, despite our government and the
State of Colorado’s efforts to clean-up these
abandoned mines.
We have spent our journey on the Eastern side of
the great divide. Now we’ll climb back over the
Wolf Creek Pass into the Western side of the
Continental Divide.
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San Juan River:
Pouring down the mountain side into Pagosa
Springs is the San Juan River. These mountains
and their rivers are major tributaries to the
Colorado River.
It flows south across the border into New
Mexico before turning west toward the four
corners of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and
Colorado. It supposedly formed a border
between the Ute and Navajo Indian tribes.
It was probably used by the Anasazi before the
Navajo. They called it the ‘Old Man River’.
It also is suppose to pick up more mud and silt
than any other stream in the southwest, yet is less
than 400 miles long.
We’ve traveled many miles along side of it across
the Utah, and Arizona deserts. There are few
bridges across any of these rivers. This one in
Monument Valley is the only one.
Look at how deep it cuts through the canyon. Is
it any wonder that it carries so much silt. Over a
period of more than 60 years it’s been measured
to carry over 25 million tons of sediment per
year. Wow! We thought the sand in the mouth
of the Rio Grande at Brownville, Texas was a
problem. This river filled the Glen Canyon dam
in less than 60 years. It now pours into Lake
Powell. Imagine how long it will that will take?
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But, we aren’t going to follow it very far before
turning back along the mountains to Durango.
Our interest is in Navajo Lake which was built in
the early 60’s with a huge earthen dam. It
straddles the border between Colorado and New
Mexico.
Earthen dams are not in vogue anymore. This
one is huge over 400 feet high and 3,000 feet
long. It’s compiled of layers of cobble stone,
gravel, sand and clay. Fortunately, while
constructing it there were no problems like the
earthen dam at Fort Peck in Montana. It
collapsed while being built.
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Look at this whopper! Down below it’s almost
800 feet thick. At the top along the road it’s just
30 feet wide.
Navajo Lake State Park, CO
We’ve been here several times over the years.
Once while making a round trip from Durango
to Aztec, and Farmington and back to Durango,
over the Fourth of July. It’s worth telling about if
only because we didn’t like it much.
The State Park is in the Land of Enchantment.
We had the last camp site in the large park.
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But, it hadn’t been vacated yet, so we waited.
From the hillside we could see the four boat and
trailer parking lots. We’ve never seen anything
like it. Thousands of speed boats, hundreds of
house boats, and even more trailers and trucks.
We were surprised that the trailers weren’t double
deckers.
Americans never seem to amaze us with their
ability to buy, collect and be so ostentatious
about it. It must be a special kind of spiritual
drive.
The camp sites are close together, with no trees
or shade and filled with tents, boats, trailers and
pick-up’s. They were everywhere, even along the
road sides.
We won’t go into how much fun all the campers
were having, or the toilet facilities. Rating = 1.
There was some reason that we were glad to be
there. Maybe, because we had a place to stay for
th
the 4 . We made the best of it.
Earlier in our travels a camper had given us a
couple of wooden tulips he had carved. One red,
one white and one blue. They were each on a
long green dole. We tied them to our site pole,
along with our long traveled American flag. It
had been with us across the US, from one end of
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Canada, Yukon to Labrador, and up and down
the east coast.
Texas Hole NM :
We were sure we would never return to Navajo
Lake. However, as we were leaving we stopped
at the bottom of the dam. There to our surprise
the San Juan River made a long fishing hole.
A camp neighbor from Wisconsin had told us
about it. He, a fisherman, was used to catching
12” and even 14” trout. The day before he had
caught a 19” trout in the river. He thought it was
marvelous, but instead of the usual catch and
release, by law he had to let it go. He was
astonished that it was too small to keep. We had
to see it for ourselves.
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There it is, the Texas Hole, behind Arlene,
fisherman and small double ended fishing boats.
The boats looked like Newfoundland whalers,
with flat bottoms. They each had ads and phone
numbers on their sides. Everyone seemed to be
catching fish, big ones. But, no one was keeping
any trophies.
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The sign says the daily limit is one fish. ‘Catch
only one, if it’s not 20” or longer let it go’.
‘Please return smaller fish to the water’. After a
while we left for Aztec.
Navajo Lake NM:
We’re suckers for a good drive and a remote
place to camp. We returned years later to the
Navajo Lake from the south through Tucumcari,
New Mexico. Route 104 is a great back road
across the wide open spaces of the State. Several
paved back roads later we came to Country
Route 527. For 20 miles we followed this road,
It never was maintained, lots of pot holes, some
roughly paved, some just dirt.
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There were supposed to be 40 campsites, a few
with electricity. There was, and although we had
reservations, we also had our pick of sites. The
camp had two areas. One for tents, and one for
RV’s and trailers. They were all dusty, flat and
separated from each other by trees. The facilities
were clean. This side of the lake rated a 4. We
really liked the place and had a good time.
Down the trail we came to the lake and a floating
dock. The water was clear. There were a few
motorboats, and no house boats. Off to the side
was this beautiful cove. A few tent campers were
swimming. I guess you can never tell about a
place.
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It was so nice we had the awning down, and with
a gust of wind it popped over the Casita. Now
we know not to leave the awning up over nite
because of the wind. We learned that anytime it’s
down we need to secure it with tent pegs.
This was a good place for us and we had a nice
time. After several days we left to get back on the
trail
Aztec and Farmington NM
We stopped to see Sheriff Lynn Izatt, a fellow
Arlene’s son Matt had met at a police conference.
He was great, talked to us for a couple of hours.
How policing New Mexico was a real challenge
as many large ranchers felt it was their
responsibility. Which kept them out of the their
land and out of the picture.
He also showed us how bronco’s were ridden
while sitting in his office chair. He bounced all
over cigarettes and hat flying. He had broken
wild horses all his life on his dad’s ranch, and was
a High School State Champion in Utah.
We left him and Aztec in a good mood.
Farmington, New Mexico was next stop. We had
heard that it had one of the best public golf
courses in the west. We wanted to see it and play
nine holes, our usual outing. It was too late for
us to play so we continued to Durango.
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Farmington must have a lot of business, as the
homes were large, built on several acres. They
had an airport and this really nice golf course.
Coal Mining supports the community.
Durango, Colorado:
In the 1940’s there was a western movie character
I liked called the Durango Kid. He rode a white
horse with black sparking saddle and gear, and
wore a black shirt, pants, boots, hat, and a black
bandana around his face. He had black double
holsters, silver 45 six shooters with ivory
handles. Who would have guessed he was named
after the city in Colorado.
Durango isn’t very big. It fits nicely below the
San Juan Mountains along the Animas River.
Beside ‘the kid’ Durango is best known for the
river, which Louie L’ amor made famous in his
wild west fiction novels.
Looking for a place to stay we drove through
town to the State Park. It was in the mountains,
which was a pretty steep climb, and what you
could call ‘natural’. That’s when the camp sites
are cleared of brush, with only pit toilets. Many
campgrounds are ‘a-la-natural’, and we’ve stayed
in many of them.
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However, we didn’t take to it, preferring to be
closer to town, and paying more. We ended up
in a private RV camp two blocks from the river
and five blocks from the center of town. If we
paid more, we made it up by being in such a good
location. We walked everywhere.
When we crossed the bridge into town. There
were a number of people floating down the river,
through class II rapids. We stopped and
watched. It looked like fun. The water was clear,
and bubbled as it ran over and around the rocks.
Louie L’amor’s hero’s would cross it without
getting their saddles wet. It looked like it was
three feet deep.
Across the river we came to the main intersection
in town. The train station was just beyond us
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and on the far side was down town. Durango
was a mining town for most of the last century,
but today most of the mines are closed. It has
morphed itself into a tourist mecca, a tourist trap.
We never thought we were such an easy target,
but…..
Every afternoon it rained, just like the tropics in
Florida. This afternoon was no exception. We
took to the side streets, hopping under one shops
canopy to another. Into a book store, Arlene
bought the latest Michael McGarity detective
novel. We had just finished his ‘Tularosa’ and
liked the stories about New Mexico. They were
more interesting to us than Hillerman’s books.
A few canopies down we ducked into a silver and
leather store. By the time we reached the end of
the shops we were in the residential area. It was
really nice, with homes like cape cods, small one
and half stories, nicely painted and kept up with
small yards.
We really liked this place. We’ve seen a lot of
towns over the last 20 years that are so nice.
Often by the time we get to them they have
already grown beyond their boundaries.
For instance we loved Prescott, Arizona. It had
an active community, good medical care, good
education programs, rodeos, and live theater.
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Once in Prescott’s’ town square talking with a
couple from New York City. They had lived
there for 12 years and loved it. But, they advised
that we were too late. Prescott had already
grown beyond it’s boundaries.
It’s true, outside of Prescott ‘big box’ stores had
lined the highways. Developers were moving in
to build the usual southwestern communities of
thousands of homes.
Outside of Durango we would see several gated
communities, and just south of us along US 160
to Pogosa Springs were the ‘big boxes’, Wal-
Mart, Home Depot, and other retail stores.
We turned and walked back into Durango. This
was a nice place.
We have to renew our own stores. Generally
when we’re on the road we stop at every Wal-
Mart, or Sam’s Club to by gas. Here in the west
we also stop at Maverick and a couple of Kroger
stores, each with different names. We like them,
but the latter are usually expensive. Each time
we go into a new ‘box store’ I have to signup for
their Customer Service card. I’ve accumulated a
lot of them from all these places and more.
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Tomorrow we’ll take the narrow gage railroad up
The Animas River to the gold mining town of
Silverton.
The Durango to Silverton Narrow Gage Rail
We were up early, had breakfast and walked over
to the train station. Several train’s locomotive
and cars were lined up ready to leave. Four trains
run daily during the summer.
The Durango Silverton was originally built in
1880. It carted gold and silver for years before
the value of the minerals dropped. For some
time it carried Uranium, but it’s strong hold has
been tourism. The locomotives are coal driven
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steam engines from the 1920’s, and do they blow
smoke.
The narrow gage railroad follows the Animas
River up the valley. It cuts a canyon that is so
beautiful a number of movies have been made
along it, including Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance kid, and Around the World in 80 Days.
We’re the final 8 a.m. train to leave. Here I am
hanging out of the window. Arlene had to run to
get on board.
There’s no way to duck the soot and smoke from
the engine. We were 5 cars back yet shortly after
we left the station cinders were coming through
the windows. It’s not hard to realize it’s
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burning coal. Having grandparents that used it
throughout my childhood brought back the
memory quickly, and the undeniable smell of
coal. We should have brought masks with us.
Shortly, there after we were both coughing.
The steam whistle blew, the cow bell rang and
our smudge pot 14 wheel engine chugged out of
the station. This was going to be a great
experience.
We rode through Durango, out along the flat
Animas Valley. There were more horses in the
fields, and several old cars on the road near us.
Further along two cowboys galloped their horses
beside us waving their hats. We passed their
stable where every horse looked to be saddled
and ready to go, and a sign inviting us to take a
day’s ride.
Before we began to climb we passed a couple of
new gated developments and a golf course.
The Animas River runs hard for 50 miles down
through the gorge from Silverton. Past Durango
another 25 miles before it opens out onto New
Mexico’s high desert, close to Aztec.
We climbed up and up above the river. It’s a
narrow canyon and we were probably 700 feet
above the water. Looking out the window was
easy as we never closed them. However, as we
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went along tree limbs would brush the train cars.
If you wanted to look out you had to first see
what was coming. At one point I looked out;
straight down, below me was the river. This
wasn’t a bridge, this was the rail but there wasn’t
any ground underneath it.
We spent most of our time gazing and hanging
out of the windows. It’s really rough, rocky
country. What a job it must have been to build
this rail road. Even so it must also be a hard job
to keep it maintained. There’s not room between
the rails and the mountain, rocks or cliffs.
th
Inside the cars, have been refurbished, to a 19
century wooden box car. The windows slide
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up and down without pulleys, the ceilings were
shellacked wood planks like hard wood floors.
The floors were green linoleum. The seats are
wooden benches, whose best part were the
pillows for padding, trying to make them
comfortable.
We chugged along a mind splitting speed of 15
miles per hour. That was plenty fast enough to
see everything and to get us into Silverton in time
for lunch. Imagine that.
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Silverton
We have been here several times. Once we drove
through from Ouray, another mining town, and
stayed long enough to mail some post cards from
the post office. Driving through the mountains
was more interesting than the town.
When we were in the Rio Grande Wilderness
there were trails that led through the mountains
here, but we weren’t able to follow them. It was
far too rugged.
When they were mining here it’s said that $300
million dollars was taken from the hills. Today
there’s not much left of the mining town. It’s
long since been taken over by the tourist trade.
As we got off the train the streets were all dirt.
We’ve seen this before, in the refurbished
Dawson City in the Yukon. Dirt streets are part
of the business.
Only the main street is paved. Maybe because
U.S. 550 runs through it and the town didn’t have
any choice. The town is inviting with shop after
shop painted a different color. Flower pots at
every corner, and boxes of them outside many
shops.
We weren’t particularly taken by this town but,
we did have an ice cream and a piece of cherry
pie for lunch. There seemed to be as many
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empty stores and rental signs as there were knic-
knac or jewelry shops.
But, look at this. It must be a miners dream.
A camo painted 4x4 jeep decorated with travel
decals, bull’s horn hood ornament, and a shovel.
Look at the large lug tires. We loved it. We
could go anywhere with it. Arlene wanted to
chase down the owner and ask if we could take it
for a ride.
In the background you can see how pretty the
shops were in all their tourist colors. It wasn’t
long before we had to head back to the station
for our train ride back to Durango.
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Gold mine Disasters
Before we leave the mineral rich area of the San
Juan National Park and Forest. We need to say a
little about how this area has been abused by
miners and mining companies. It’s impossible to
phantom how the area has suffered because of
the chemicals and techniques used to extract
these minerals.
We must say that this is not unusual for
companies to extract minerals, go bust and leave
the cleanup to the government. It is however,
unusual for the communities around such areas
to reject funding and support from the federal
government.
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Here in Silverton, Durango and Ouray, the
communities turned down the Federal Superfund
money because it would look bad for tourism.
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Try these signs, set up to demonstrate how much
they care about the mines left behind. This
rehabilitation began in 1980.
Good job folks being that it’s only 40 years later.
Check out the top of the photo, looks a lot like
Coal Mining in West Virginia where they take the
top off the mountain and leave it.
We have seen mine after mine, creek after creek
that is damaged by the mines and abandoned. In
some cases yellow ponds and creeks have been
around for decades, and never cleaned up. Signs
at locations describe the effort that has been
going on for years.
In Ouray, we’ve seen many abandoned mines and
the reckless manner that mining was undertaken.
Mine shafts were abandoned leaving mounds of
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debris pilled high, and rail trestles collapsing
around the mountains.
Several areas had reclamation signs explaining
how good these areas would be after the
completed cleanup. One such area has a weird
hill side of seeded green grass. It looked
unnatural in the mountains.
Other spots, still in the transformation stage,
particularly around creek beds were yellow, ocre,
orange and rusty red. Hardly the color of a clear
mountain stream.
Ouray is not the only town like this. They are all
ready to put it behind them. To focus on
tourism and hiding it rather than solving the
pollution problem.
Later, in Golden, Colorado we will learn that no
water in Colorado, is safe from arsenic. Despite
what Coors would have you think about it’s
wonderful Rocky Mountain water. Could it be
poisoned?
In 2015 the Gold Kings Mine, long abandoned,
had a waste water spill. Containment is an
impossible cleanup, but what’s usually done is the
waste water from the mines is kept in ponds.
Three million gallons was believed to have
flowed into the Animas River. That’s three
million gallons of waste water, and heavy metals
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including Lead, Arsenic, Beryllium, Zinc,
Cadmium, Iron and Copper.
Here’s what the Animas looked like.
Compare that to the clear water photos we took
on our trip up the Animas to Silverton.
Or take a look at the Animas at the Durango
bridge we walked across each day and watched
rafters enjoying the ride through the rapids.
Still the trains ran. Let’s forget the pollution.
It’s difficult for us to understand why there isn’t
more of an effort to resolve the water problems
of our Great Southwest, Mining and drought
have long been a huge problem, from the
Colorado River, Salton Sea to the mining issues
across southwest and America at large. We are
more interested in continuing to reap the benefits
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of our natural resources than cleaning up and
caring for them.
History tells us a sad story.
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CHAPTER 3
MESA VERDE:
Culture and Civilizations:
We’re about to begin a chapter whose subject
and experience we know little about.
In our lifetime we have only seen one kind of
culture or civilization. At least 13,000 years of
similar interests, morals and above all
development. It’s that background that we use to
evaluate and observe our experiences of the
natural, artificial and imaginary world we live in.
It’s far fetched but, museums are an example of
our understanding. All over the world, we have
seen a similar presentation style, from one to
another. Museums in Australia, New Zealand,
Nebraska, New York or Europe all have the
same format. It’s subject matter could differ
from war, dinosaurs, geological, arts, industrial,
agricultural, astronomical, historical or any other,
but they use the same culture and civilization
background to present it.
Every museum uses a ‘time line’ approach to a
presentation. They begin with a subject, at it’s
earliest and show it’s changing development
through time.
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The presentation might not be all encompassing
as the history of our human development, maybe
just the different stages of an architect like I.M.
Pei, from his early work at the National Center
for Atmospheric Research, which used Mesa
Verde’s cliff dwellings as inspiration to the John
F. Kennedy Library, and many buildings all over
the world, from Hong Kong, Qatar, and Europe.
We are tied to our culture and it’s ways. We see
our world from that view. When we were young
we were taught to use knives and forks while we
developed table manners over time. We
appreciated even if we didn’t understand the
Pythagoras Theorem, Archimedes Displacement
theory, or Newton’s gravitational pull. We
believe the planets circle the sun because the
Greek’s and later Nicolas Copernicus’
Heliocentric model.
We have been raised to see our lives in a posture
of continual development. That life is forever an
educational experience that we learn a little
something today and a little something else
tomorrow. What we knew yesterday may help us
change, and live differently today.
Anasazi, ‘Ancients Ones’ :
Archeologists believe that America was
populated from the migration of peoples coming
across the Bearing Strait, when there was a
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MESA VERDE:
land bridge between the two continents.
Development of large civilizations are historically
seen in Latin America, both the Inca’s in Peru
and the Mayan’s and Aztec’s in Mexico, and
maybe in the Amazon rain forest of Brazil.
Across the American Southwest there was a large
population of different peoples who as we
understand built roads or trails for thousands of
miles. They used those trails to trade. These
early peoples may have been Ancient Pueblos, or
at least related to them.
History is ripe with their time line. Maybe as
long ago as 13,000 years ago there was a group
near Clovis, New Mexico. They made tools, but
disappeared after 300 years. The ‘Archaic’
peoples may have populated the area before the
Anasazi.
The Anasazi, the Ancient Ones, seem to have
made their impression across the Southwest
between 200 A.D until 1,300 A.D. We have seen
many of their villages and historical artifacts.
They are believed to be the ancestors to the
ancient Pueblos.
The entire time line has been called the ‘Pecos
Classification’. It has two basic groups. The
early Basket Makers from 1,000 B.C. to 750 A.D.
The other is the Pueblo Era, with five periods
from 750 A.D. to present time.
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You can see from the divisions that there isn’t
much change or development during their
history. At least from what we’ve discovered.
If in contrast we were to define our era during
just the last 2,000 years it would be quite
different. Say, the Greco-Roman period, the
Dark or Middle ages, the era of Enlightenment
the Industrial, and now the era of Information.
Wow! Just look at the changing, developing type
of world we live in versus theirs.
This is why we will have trouble expressing our
experience about the Cliff Dwellings in Mesa
Verde and around the southwest. Our culture
and experiences are totally different from theirs.
We can appreciate their culture, and try to
understand the development of their civilization.
Cultural Development:
There are eleven different tribes that have some
ancestral ties to the Cliff Dwellings in Mesa
Verde. Four of these tribes have dominated the
Southwest for the last several centuries, the
Navajo, Apache, Hopi and Ute. They have
mostly lived in peace during this period as well as
during the Mesa Verde Period from 300 to 900
A.D.
Mesa Verde is the best known development of
it’s kind. There may be hundreds of Anasazi sites
across the four states of Arizona, New Mexico,
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MESA VERDE:
Utah and Colorado. We have visited a few of
them.
It was important for us to see as many of these
remarkable sites and shelters before we arrived in
Colorado, at this National Park. They passed on
their culture and way of life mostly through word
of mouth, stories, artifacts like clay pots, designs
in baskets and their dwellings.
We have seen their petro-graphs drawing all over
the west. Our favorite is along the Colorado
River near Moab, Utah, and in the Canyonlands
National Park.
These were so high on the cliff we suspected that
when originally drawn the river had not cut it’s
way 40 feet deeper into the sandstone.
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Some are more intricate than others. This one
near Sedona is quite simple.
They were known for their baskets. Here is a old
basket that we inherited. Maybe it’s a Navajo
basket, but we’re not sure.
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Their shelters were different in many places.
Mostly we’ve seen the stone and clay mortar
construction. Here in Boulder, Utah is a
different kind of structure. It’s at the top of the
Escalante Hills, which today is a desert like
climate. There are no cliffs for miles.
It’s interesting to note that the stone
construction is different than the way we are use
to building. The mortar is very thick, maybe 5 or
6 inches. It fills the spaces between the stones on
all sides. The stones themselves are more often
laid on top of each other constructing columns.
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Our brick masons stagger the bricks so that they
reinforce their strength. Historically, we’ve seen
the Pyramids of Latin America and the Middle
East, Egypt, built with such precision that
gigantic cut stones lay tightly beside each other
with little or no mortar.
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