This park defines remote. We knew it was a challenge to get to this park with our trailer, not recommended, so we approached it from our campsite in White Rock, about a 3 hour drive. We were closer near Mesa Verde and ought to have tried it then but did not for reasons I now don’t recall. I am sure they were great. Anyway, a long but scenic drive to the road that leads to the park. Once you turn off the main highway the road goes through reservation land and is a dusty, bumpy, washboard trail that you are on for 15 miles. Good decision to leave the trailer elsewhere.
The park is very neat. You are in a huge valley or canyon that is dotted with pueblo ruins. There are quite a few and some of the villages were large. It was a major trading center for 100’s of years and their trading partners ranged over 1,000’s of miles. We toured the main park loop road and stopped at 4 of the sites: Pueblo Bonito, Una Vida, Pueblo Del Arroyo and Perfiasco Blanco. These were all large great houses of three or four stories with hundreds of rooms and kivas that were begun in the 800’s and were added to over 300 years. The structures used a new form of masonry that allowed the multistory buildings. They built roads to connect the pueblos and even carved steps in the canyon walls to make it easier to enter or exit the canyon. Remarkable place.
Looking at one pueblo from a community kiva
The access doors were blocked by the NPS
A hint at the size with the people in the left of the frame. There are several kivas visible here
Original wall - note the intricate stone work done with no metal tools
A glimpse of the detail work and the supporting timbers. The wood was hand carried from a mountain 55 miles away. NPS estimate is that there are 20,000 timbers in the original structures.
One of the four carved stairways out of the canyon
This unusual window in an angled wall is to make the summer solstice.
Providing the same view for a 1000 years.