Chaco Canyon - More Input

For those that might consider taking that bumpy section of road (13 miles on CR7950), hopefully you might have more time available for some additional hikes -- like the top of the North Mesa where the view of Pueblo Bonito, Pueblo del Arroyo and Chetro Ketl below would add the best perspective of all that our Native Americans built below.  This wouldn't begin to touch on the other 150 houses or sites elsewhere along the 400 miles of roads they built but, it sure would be worth the climb/hike.

The hike into and around Pueblo Bonito (Spanish for "Beautiful Town") is .73 miles roundtrip and requires climbing stairs and short rises and ducking/stooping through narrow doorways along the route.  Helps you get a feeling of what it must have been like for the indians living there or visiting there -- minus the roofs, ladders and doorways through the roofs, of course.

 

The trail map gives you as good an overall view as possible from ground level and some pictures (like the one to the right) only give a bit of a false impression as the large stones and rubble in the foreground are parts of the north cliff collapse that fell in 1941 after some unusually heavy rains (January 22nd, I believe).  I wondered if there were many Petroglyphs too that might have disappeared from sight when that happened.

Pueblos del Arroyo ("Village by the wash") has a 1/4 mile, roundtrip trail that agains winds about the "D-shaped" great house with climbs, up, down and mostly around the ruins.  I believe this house had 4 or 5 stories at the back near the cliff and stepped down to one level nearest the wash.  Apparently the wash had only been some 18 inches deep and 8 feet across in the late 1800s but, it now is some 30 to 40 feet deep and 100 feet wide due to over-grazing during the last 100 years which allowed more erosion and flash floods.

Many of the rooms along the south side or lowest level had entry through the roofs and they contained fire pits and grinding slabs -- typical of domestic dwellings -- which are not in the older public buildings like Pueblo Bonito.  All this according to the brochure and noted that the construction has been dated from 1025 to 1125.

Chetro Ketl does not have a known meaning to the name but, two Navajo names  for "covered hole", referring to several sealed cavities in the cliff behind and "house in the corner" since it is near a box canyon (or Rincon).  The trail is only 1/2 mile, roundtrip but, a little steep in some places nearest the cliffs behind.