Category: North America

We enjoyed green forest and fast running stream next to our spot at Rio De Las Vacas Campground, and relaxing short 5-mile walk on Horse Canyon Forest Rd. Even more so in anticipation of quick change of scenery to hot, dry and desert-like environment at Chaco Canyon (and the following days). To get there our Subaru was subjected to 13-mile rough dirt road test – it was not as bad as we worried, a good sign for more dirt-roads in our plans. We drove there via Rds 7900 and 7950 from NM Hwy 550 near Nageezi.

☞ Chaco Culture National Historical Park is almost unknown, but contains amazing remains of a huge ceremonial center of Ancestral Puebloan people used from 850 to 1250 AD. There are several great houses which are mini-cities consisting sometimes of hundreds of rooms, with multiple ceremonial kivas and plazas aligned to serve as astronomical observatories. We learned about it only a few years ago. Remote location and lack of paved roads mean few tourists – visiting the ruins is real pleasure. Turns out Ancestral Puebloans developed cultural sites on par with that of South American peoples, however meaning and details of their structures, petroglyphs, ceremonies and believes are mostly forgotten.

We stayed 2 nights at the park campground (the sites are too close to one another for unknown reason, as there is a lot of space to spread out the campground ), made two longer hikes to the mesa above the canyon and petroglyphs and visited several grand house ruins (Pueblos), and listened to archeoastronomy talk. It was hot and we hiked a little less than we planed. Joanna wished we had more time there.

We walked 12 miles visiting main sites: Hungo Pavi – Chetro Ketl – New Pueblo Alto – Pueblo Alto – Kin Kletso – Casa Chiquita -Petroglyph Trail – Pueblo Del Arroyo – Pueblo Bonito – Casa Rinconada

We decided early on to concentrate most of the highway driving in the first two and last two days of the trip (1110+1270 miles), and then have fewer miles to cover on other days. Despite late start, we made it to ☞ Bennett Spring SP campground in Missouri the first day. The size of the spring is impressive – underground river coming to the surface. We checked it out quickly in the morning before driving to ☞ Palo Duro Canyon SP in Texas where we had reservation for two nights (Fortress Cliff and Mesquite Campgrounds). The campgrounds were all booked, but many spots remained unoccupied and the park was not overcrowded. We had one full day for a longer hike to the Lighthouse, returning via Givens, Spicer, Lowry and Paseo del River trails. Next morning we hiked Rock Garden trail meandering on cliff slopes above valley floor. Despite large campgrounds in the middle of the park, there are many good trails to explore with few hikers/bikers. It was good decision to stop there. In the afternoon we drove to Grants NM. On the way from Chicago we saw many relicts of Route 66 times (our motel in Grants including) and finally decided to take a picture with the commemorative sign in Grants. Because of large wild fires in New Mexico and Arizona, we decided not to go to Santa Fe, Bandelier NM (closed) and Sunset Crater Volcano/Wupatki NM (recovering after fire) and visited ☞ El Malpais NM and ☞ El Morro NM instead.

We spent one day in El Malpais visiting Sandstone Bluffs and sandstone arch, observing huge lawa flows of different ages (115000-3900 years ago), lava tubes (unfortunately closed for exploration), and hiking Calderon Cinder Cone with different color cinders from multiple eruptions. We ended the day at a very nice El Morro Campground.

We changed gear a bit at El Morro looking not only at the rocks, but also at whats on them: petroglyphs (and modern inscriptions) and pueblo ruins. We spent most of the day “reading” sandstone walls and then hiking up to the top of the messa to visit ruins of Pueblo Atsinna. We stopped at Boca Negra Canyon section of ☞ Petroglyph NM on the outskirts of Albuquerque for more petroglyphs and late lunch, before heading to Sant Fe NF for good night rest at forested Rio De Las Vacas Campground.