Exploring the Canyons of the Ancients
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The Canyons of the Ancients National Monument is a vast network of ruins in Southwestern Colorado and Eastern Utah. The ruins were built by bequeathed Puebloans the 12th century Ad. If you are anything like me, you are thinking "What?? 12th Century ruins right hither in the Us?". I know, I was surprised also!
Discovering the Canyons of the Ancients
I had never even heard of the Canyons of the Ancients before planning this trip. I'one thousand so ashamed of my lack of knowledge of aboriginal American history! My plan was to road trip through Southwestern Colorado to visit Mesa Verde National Park, some other ancestral site (Which I had simply merely recently heard of as well). Did you know that Mesa Verde is home to ancient cliff dwellings? Neither did I, but as soon as I heard that, I had to get see information technology. Anyhow, I digress.
While I was planning my route from California to Colorado, I noticed another area on the map spanning from Southwest Colorado to Southern Utah labeled "Canyons of the Ancients". That sounds absurd, doesn't it!? The Canyons of the Ancients are super close to Mesa Verde, according to the map. They are also shaded in green, indicating a National Park. I decided to add it to my itinerary with absolutely no research into what it actually was.
The Canyons of the Ancients isn't exactly a National Park. It'due south not like Mesa Verde or the Thou Coulee, where sites of interest are mapped out and easily attainable. The Canyons of the Ancients are 164 thousand acres of land protected by the National Bureau of Land Management with limited access. Many of the ruins protected in this vast stretch of land are still buried!
Don't let the idea that some ruins are still buried foreclose you from going. There are enough of amazing sites that are excavated and open to the public. They are by and large tucked away off gravel and clay roads, and some tin just exist reached by foot! Don't let this deter you, information technology is merely part of the adventure! All of the sites I visited were well worth the effort it took to see them. I only mention this so that you don't get anxious, equally I did, when traveling down a seemingly abased dirt road. You are probably heading in the right direction!
Getting Started with the Ancients
If you are going to visit the Canyons of the Ancients, yous should start with the Anasazi Visitor Center located near Cortez, CO. The archway fee is three dollars, which includes admission to a museum that houses a rich collection of Native American artifacts, including pottery, tools, and tapestries. It likewise offers fun hands-on display! I played with a existent flint rock tool, and I tried my hand at weaving (which is super hard, thank god for modern technology!). While at the center, you can go a map of the important sites in the Canyons of the Ancients from the museum staff, who also give y'all splendid directions to the many excavated sites.
During my journey through the Canyons of the Ancients, I explored Lowry Pueblo, Painted Hands, Cutthroat Ruins, and Hovenweep National Monument. These are some of the amend-known, excavated, and easily accessible archaeological sites.
Lowry Pueblo
Lowry Pueblo is fantastic. It is off a gravel road with few signs, but it is a huge sandstone pueblo and very well preserved. Yous can even go inside a picayune bit! The site includes a Kiva and information on Pueblo life. Kivas are Puebloan ceremonial sites, and as an armchair archaeologist, it was really interesting to see where inhabitants adept their rituals.
This site is very accessible and easy to get to. The walk around the Pueblo was paved and mostly flat, then wheelchairs and persons with disabilities should exist able to navigate information technology fairly easily. Information technology also has a pocket-size recreation area that's perfect for picnics. A huge bonus to me was that there was as well a restroom available – not all of these hikes have restrooms!
Painted Hands
Painted Easily is incredible equally well. Information technology is a tower built on top of a pocket-sized enclave. Information technology is called painted hands due to the cave paintings of hands underneath the tower inside the enclave. This petroglyph is difficult to spot at first, but if you await closely you will encounter them. It is truly awe inspiring to see artwork that has survived the elements for centuries.
Painted Easily is located down a fairly rough dirt road, and although you lot can see the belfry from the makeshift parking lot, information technology is a bit of a hike to actually become to information technology and to see the paintings underneath. Information technology's a rather steep trail, and not accessible to wheelchairs.
Cutthroat Ruins
Later seeing the tower and the painted hands, I continued down the savage dirt road to cutthroat ruins. Hiking to see these ruins was crude! The towers are about a mile hike through high-desert terrain, which is hilly and super hot in the summertime. The hike would accept been a lot easier if it wasn't for the searing oestrus, and so make sure you bring plenty of water. It was worth the effort though, cutthroat ruins consist of multiple towers, some of which are in excellent shape considering their age. It's amazing that these towers, which accept been abandoned for centuries, are nonetheless standing. Preservation efforts didn't begin until the 19th century, so these towers had to withstand the harsh winds of the desert with no human-made intervention. The Pueblo people actually knew their architecture.
Hovenweep
My last stop was Hovenweep National Monument, located on the Utah side of the Canyons of the Ancients. Hovenweep is the most well-known of all the sites I visited. It even has a bathroom and a minor visitor's heart!
Hovenweep has iii tiers of hikes to chose from. The first is a leisurely tower overview hike. This is a short walk on a paved path that leads to an overlook of the towers from across the canyon. This hike is perfect for people with mobility issues. The 2nd tier is a tower walk, which is a brusque half-circle around the canyon. This hike takes you shut to the towers. Information technology was an easy walk with no elevation changes, but information technology probably isn't very accessible for people with mobility issues. The third option is a more strenuous hike all the way effectually the coulee. I did not fifty-fifty desire to try that trailhead later my difficulty with Cutthroat Ruins!
I chose the section pick, which allowed me to run into all the monuments in the area without a strenuous hike.
The Mysteries of the Ancients
There are many other sites protected under the Canyons of the Ancients monument. Getting to some of them requires vigorous hiking, and getting to others requires insider knowledge since their locations aren't on the map. The sites I visited are all doable together in one day. If y'all take more time (and are adventurous), you lot might want to hike deeper into the canyons to uncover more of the mysteries within.
Source: https://partnersinfire.com/passion-fire-2/travel/exploring-canyons-of-the-ancients/
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