Chaco Culture NHP
August 2005

The infamous CR7950 - The road to Chaco. It's 16 miles of washboard dirt and gravel with one wash that can rise after storms and prevent traffic from passing. CR7950 is one reason why Chaco is so quiet and possibly underutilized. Unfortunately that will be changing this Fall (2005) when the road will be chip sealed. The flood in the wash was caused by a heavy rain several miles upstream. It rained at Chaco, but not hard. The wash was impassable except for high 4WD vehicles for most of a morning.

The canyon and Fajada Butte from about 2 miles out. The countryside is sparsely populated. There is a house about every five miles as you drive in to the canyon. Occasional herds of cattle roam the fields, and there are glimpses of small wildlife - squirrels, ravens and prairie dogs.

Rainbow & Sunrise on Fajada Butte - The butte was a key ceremonial site for the Ancestral Puebloans, and one artifact that remained through modern times is the "sun dagger." Archaeologists speculate that shadows created by standing rocks marked both solstices and equinoxes on spirals carved on the butte. Unfortunately, visitors are no longer permitted to climb Fajada because of the erosion caused by foot traffic. Also one of the standing stones has collapsed so the shadows no longer play on the surface as they did in the past.

Our Site -The tent is our "auxiliary storage". Trying to survive in a small truck camper for a month in an isolated spot is a challenge. The tent helped contain items that were not immediately required. Also, note the Igloo thermoelectric refrigerator by the tent. It runs on either 12V or 120V and was perfect for drinks. It rode in the back of our Super Cab truck during the journey and was plugged into the cigarette lighter. When we got back to San Diego we had a chance to purchase a larger unit with a slideout (Lance 981 Max), and did so since we plan on spending a lot more time in environments like this one.

I came originally for the Astronomy - I learned about Chaco through a Letter to the Editor in Astronomy Magazine last Fall. It wanted interested parties to apply as volunteers. Of course after we were accepted and I found out more about where I was going to be volunteering it was apparent that there was a lot more in Chaco than just astronomy. As a matter of fact, this is a World Heritage site along with places such as the Pyramids in Egypt. Still the equipment here for astronomy is fantastic, and the skies are as dark as you will find in the United States. Here are some images of the equipment available for astronomy. (The scope in the background of the bottom left image belongs to a volunteer. The others have been donated to the Park.)

Pueblo Bonito-Pueblo Bonito is a Chacoan "Great House" that dates from the 1100's. It is in a section of the Canyon known as "Downtown Chaco", and very close to other great houses and other structures. The jury is still out on exactly what activities were conducted here. Certainly it was partially supporting ceremonial activities, but how about habitation? Grain Storage? Trading rooms? Nobody knows for sure. There are many astronomical alignments here and elsewhere in Chaco, but we don't know for certain if they were planned, or if they are coincidental. Many questions will never be answered. Pueblo Bonito however was certainly four stories tall, and had between 600 and 800 rooms in it making it the largest building in North America until 1870!

Pueblo Bonito from the trail -

Masonry and support beams - This is all original. The support beams were carried from mountains 50-60 miles away from Chaco. Of course the Chacoan's had no beasts of burden and did not use the wheel.

A series of rooms in the structure -

Original ceiling in one of the rooms -This is NOT reconstructed - it's almost 1,000 years old!

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