Chaco who-there-what-now?

The next day we headed for Chaco Canyon, the inspiration for our trip to the US Southwest.  The Chaco Culture National Historic Park is in northwestern New Mexico in the middle of nowhere.  To get there you have the option of driving up on a really awful dirt road from the south, or a reasonably bad dirt road from the north.  Luckily we had the Jeep instead of a Ford Focus (the rental car that we had originally been assigned) so we flew up to the park by noon via the bumpy south road.

Between 900 and 1150ish, Chaco Canyon was a major centre of culture for the ancient Pueblo peoples.  It has the densest and (according to Wikipedia) most exceptional collection of ancient ruins north of Mexico.  No one has quite figured out what the Chacoans did there.  At first it was thought that 25,000 people lived there, but they quickly figured out that the environment was too hostile - in particular, no water - to support a population that large.  The latest theory is that about 2,000 people lived there but it was a major site for celebrations and is considered sacred home land.  Whatever the case may be, the ruins are pretty impressive.

First views of Chaco - these ruins are right behind the Visitors' Centre.

Petroglyphs!

Chaco is a pretty wide canyon, and certainly very dry.  We had a flawless, sunny day.

The ruins there are large scale and many are still intact (with a little help from the archaeology department at the University of New Mexico).

The biggest pueblo had almost 200 rooms over three floors.

The Frosts are not a tall people, but the Chacoans were even shorter.

Two more kivas.  Unlike modern day kivas, the ones used by the Chacoans are thought to have been more like family rooms than spiritual rooms.

After a couple hours of exploring ruins, we decided to head up the canyon wall to explore... more ruins, at the top.  Another day, another steep scrambly staircase cut into the rock.  We followed a group of school kids up, two of whom appeared to appreciate my Dad's advice that they quit whining about how steep it was and suck it up.

Fantastic views from the top.

Cairns mark the path.

Somewhere up there is another pueblo or two...

These steps were part of a major road running north-south to Chaco Canyon.  Historians are mystified since the roads are literally straight north-south and built over anything (mesa, river, whatever) in their way.

It may be hard to tell from the picture, but this actually looks like a road, albeit a road  now over 1,000 years old.

Nuevo Alto in the distance.  The major site at the top is Pueblo Alto, but it is mostly in ruins and so didn't make the cut for pictures in this post!

Chaco Canyon is way out of the way and skipped by most tourists to the Southwest, even those fascinated with ruins.  But we're glad we went!  It was super interesting, a gorgeous sunny day, and always feels a bit more adventurous to drive miles into the middle of nowhere, including almost 50 miles on dirt roads, just to get a bit of culture.