In any event, here it is:
Tomorrow, 4/25, we're headed up to Durango, CO where we'll stay until Monday.
On Monday, 4/27, it's over to Lake Powell, AZ for a couple of days.
On Wednesday, 4/29 on to the Grand Canyon until 5/4.
On Monday, 5/4, up to Bryce Canyon NP through 5/9.
On Saturday, 5/9 off to Capitol Reef NP through 5/13.
Then, right now, we're back to "no planned itinerary", though we do want to be in Yellowstone around 5/24 through about 6/8 or so.
After the planning spasm, we went over to visit the Salmon Ruins, named after the farmer who discovered the ruins and protected them until they were sold to San Juan County in 1969.
The ruins are the nearly perfect example of a Chacoan "outlier" community, built and occupied by Chacoans and connected to the "head shed" in Chaco Canyon by a road and visual signal system.
You can see better pictures of the ruins than I could take here.
As you can see, the ruins have a more "live", or at least less sterile and sanitized, feel than the NP or NM sites we have visited.
The story of the why and what of the ruins, as well as the history of the Chacoans and the area are much more straight forward than those presented by the more wishy washy theories of the NP and NM people.
I tried to find a written source where you could read all about it without my having to type it all here and where you wouldn't lose anything in my paraphrasing. Couldn't find it, so here are pictures of the panels in the Ruins Museum that tell the story, but first the pictures I took of the site.
These pictures were taken from left to right from behind the Great Kiva which was in the plaza which was the focal point for community activities. Most of the 250 rooms are still buried and awaiting excavation at a later date.
Remember to click on the pictures for larger images.
And now for the rest of the story:
Just what was a "road" back then?
Where there many? Yes. Here's a map of the known Chacoan roads. It is about 120 miles from north to south and 70 miles from east to west. The red dots on the map are other "outliers" similar to Salmon Ruins.
Why the roads? To tie the outliers to the Chaco Canyon center from yesterday; to provide an easier way for the tens of thousand of "pilgrims" from the outliers to get back and forth to ceremonies; to provide an easier way to move goods and construction materials to where they were needed. For example:
Why did they need the trees in a "brick" building? Here's a picture of the ceiling construction that was necessary to hold the weight of the upper stories:
For your further amazement, consider that the experts have concluded that the construction was completed in a 2 year period! No power tools, no beasts of burden! Keep in mind that the construction probably required more than 2500 trees, 25 - 30,000,000 stone pieces which had to be cut and transported, and who knows how many tons of mortar. Whew!
Then, after only about 25 years, the Chacoans began to leave the pueblo and between 1116 and 1130 AD the abandonment was completed. Between 1130 and 1185 AD it beggars the imagination that the pueblo stood empty, but the next signs of occupation appeared around 1185 AD.
And then, by 1300, the area was almost completely abandoned by all the inhabitants:
Thanks for you patience. I think I can promise that there won't be any more Chacoan history lessons, though we'll be in their "territory" for the next few days. The next great opportunity would be Mesa Verde NP, home of the famous cliff dwellings.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, based on your viewpoint, the one area of that park that we have not had a chance to visit won't be open for another month, so we'll be skipping Mesa Verde this time.
If you have any questions or comments, please drop us line at our regular email addresses or post a comment here.
Be Well!
MMG and DDG
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