Cedar Mesa

Thursday and Friday were Fall break in my district so I was able to take a longer weekend trip.  Plus I took Wednesday off.  Yay both principals approved.  Wednesday I left home about 8:00.  I knew it would be a long drive down to Bluff, but this seemed like a really long drive.  I got there about 4:00 in the afternoon.

There are two or three RV places in Bluff.  I couldn’t decide whether to stay in Bluff or Blanding.  They are both close to Cedar Mesa, but the roads are not really convenient.  That is the roads from either place go to different places at Cedar Mesa.  I decided on Bluff.  One I have never stayed here before.  It was closer to Monument Valley if I decided to go there one night (45 miles)  so just under an hour.  And I liked the looks of the RV parks there.

I really don’t need anything fancy when I stay at an RV park.  Just a place to take a shower and I do like electricity to run my heater if it is cold.  And I do kind of like WI-FI, but it is not as important.

I stayed in Cadillac Ranch RV Park. It was right across the street from Fort Bluff museum.  It was Ok by RV park standards if you travel a lot.  But by Bluff standards it was great.  I ate several times at the San Juan River Kitchen.  The food was good.  And I like the atmosphere as well.  I noticed a fair amount of locals there and the waitress and chef were very friendly.  By small town standards, Bluff has 5 or 6 restaurants.  I just went to this one because there were several things on the menu I wanted to try.  The fish tacos were awesome and so was the Salmon Burger.

After checking into the RV park the first night I drove to the River House or Snake House Ruin.  This was  an awesome ruin next to the river and the jeep trail also crossed over an pioneer trail which was an added bonus.  There was also not much hiking which was good because I am still having problems with my foot.  I got there about 5:30 so the lighting was superb.  There were corn cobs there as well and that always gives me a thrill.  There were several square type rock boxed that I am guessing were for maize storage and some metates there, which was also cool to see.  The metates were built right into the structure.   This ruin was facing south, not west.  I think this may be one of those ruins people don’t go to often.  The road was sandy and there was one little part where you would probably need a high clearance 4x4 vehicle to navigate.  I almost didn’t continue when I got to it, but the jeep did fine.

The next day I woke up before the sun and was head  to the ranger station at Kane Gulch to see if I could get a permit to Moon house ruin.  They only allow 20 permits per day.  I think twelve of them are on line and the other 8 permits are first come first get. 

I wasn’t sure the best way to get from Kane Gulch RS from Bluff.  There are several ways.  I asked the waitress at San Juan River Kitchen and she told me to take Moki  Dugway.  I had heard that it was a dangerous road and she laughed and said “No that is just the reputation. It was built for Uranium trucks to traverse so it is very wide and good gravel.”

So that is where I was headed at 5:30 in the morning.  And she was right.  This road is nothing.  It could get a bit slippery in the winter, but as far as scary roads or roads from Hell –this is a piece of cake.

The sun is just starting to light up the sky and I am trying to get as far up the hill as I can so I can photograph Valley of gods as the sun is coming up. I pull of the road get my camera on the tripod and I hear Coyotes down below yipping and howling as the sun peaked up over the mountain. Very surreal.  The photographs didn’t turn out all that great but here is a selfie.

I made it to the ranger station about 10 minutes after 8 and was the first person to get a permit to Moon House Ruin.  There are only 8 handed out in person and 12 over the internet—so 20 altogether.

I headed down to the trailhead about 9:00 after planning my next two days with the help of the rangers.  They are very helpful, but be aware that some of them haven’t been to the places they are describing.   I always like to ask “What is your favorite place?”   “When did you go there?”  And that gives me an idea if they are a frequent hiker.

The road wasn’t as graded has the ranger said it would be.  I got to a place that was pretty rough and a man waved me down.  He was in a van and was afraid he wouldn’t be able to make it to the trailhead.  I don’t give people rides, but I saw this guy at the ranger’s station getting a permit. I was pretty sure he was safe. 

The road was rough so I was glad I picked up “Pat” I don’t think he could have made it in his van.  I think it would have bottomed out.  The hike was longer than I thought it would be and straight down and straight back up. I was having a hard time and I was glad I had Pat with me.  He was nice to wait for me. 

Pat spent several years saving money and then he quit his job and is using his savings to hike and travel.  He has hiked the entire Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Coast trail.  He has a blog patskros.blogspot.com   if you are interested.

Moon House Ruin was fascinating.

It's the unusual construction and pictographs that bring the visitors.Tree ring cores of the juniper and pinyon logs used to construct the site indicate a 42-year construction span, between 1226 and 1268 AD, with three peak building periods. 

If you look at the main section of ruins you will
see two different construction techniques. Some of the structures (on the right) are constructed of horizontal and vertical wood poles, lashed together with willow or yucca strips. The wood lattice is then covered with mud. This so called jacal technique was used to build the earliest structures in the ruins. Many of these ruins have horse-collar shaped doorways.

The main part of the cliff dwelling (on the left) is composed of shaped sandstone blocks. Small stones are placed in the mortar between the blocks. This decorative style is employed on the later structures at Moon House.  Archaeologists have suggested that the site was merely a storehouse for maize, but why would it be so exquisite?  Perhaps as a shrine for the life blood of the community.

Pat had wandered off so I started to hike back and of course he caught up with me.  On the hike out I was again glad I had given him a ride.  I dropped him off at his van and we parted ways.

The other ruin I wanted to see was citadel ruin.  This was suppose to be a moderate hike.  The weather was beautiful.  There were a few people on the trail, but just a few.  This was a pretty straightforward hike with a clearly marked trail, but at some point you have to veer to the right and and do some scrambling.  Then there is the walk on the slickrock gangplank as the isthmus before you seemingly floats in the sky.

The Citadel, contains no rock art and I found no pottery shards. But the four big rooms, exquisitely masoned, with their front walls as flush as any plumb line could design them. The builders didn’t bother with roofs—instead they masoned the walls all the way up to the ceiling that guards the site, seven feet off the floor. And did I mention the view?  A 360* view of the canyon below. A defensive position?  Perhaps.  Although the nearest water would be 500 feet below and that water would probably dry up during the summer.

When I got to the ruin there was a small family there.  The kids couldn’t have been older than 5 and 7.    I love it when families take their families outside and show them the wonders of the world around them. I was in awe of the building of citadel.  It is indeed an amazing ruin.

I made it back to the jeep about a half hour before it got dark.  I was very tired and sore and was glad I had a nice little trailer to collapse in.

The next day I was still really sore so I looked for places that I wouldn’t have to hike very far.  16 room ruin or 16 room house is an easy drive along the San Juan River on the opposite side of the river from River House Ruin that I visited when I first got here.  This ruin did not face south or west but almost straight north.  I wonder if it was a summer home.  Corn could clearly be grown on the river bottoms and water would be readily available from the river.  In fact, those fields are corn fields even today.

There was another family searching these ruins.  As the father took the kids off to explore the mother and I reflected on how these ingenious people were able not only to live, but flourish at least until the mid 1300’s

Why did they leave? It is impossible to find a single cause that can explain it, but there appear to be several that contributed. First, the climate during the Pueblo III period was somewhat unstable with erratic rainfall patterns and periods of drought. This weather problem climaxed with a thirty-year drought starting about 1270 that coincided with a cooling trend that significantly shortened the growing season. Perhaps the expanding population had pressed the limits of the land's capacity to support the people so that they were unable to survive the climatic upheavals of the thirteenth century.

Could they have been driven out by nomadic tribes, such as Utes or Navajos? There is no direct evidence that either group, or any other like them, was in the area that early. There is mounting evidence, however, that the Numic-speaking peoples, of whom the Utes and Paiutes are part, had spread northwestward out of southwestern Nevada and were in contact with the Pueblo-like peoples of western Utah by A.D. 1200. It is certainly possible that they were in San Juan County shortly after that. Ute and Paiute sites are very difficult to distinguish from Anasazi campsites, and we may not be recognizing them. Navajos were in northwestern New Mexico by 1500, but we do not know where they were before that. Perhaps the answer to the Anasazis' departure from Utah lies in a combination of the bad-climate and the arriving-nomads theories.

See: J. Richard Ambler and Marc Gaede, The Anasazi (1977); and Linda S. Cordell, Prehistory of the Southwest (1984).

I then did a quick hike to Ballroom cave and a cave/ruin next to it.  This ruin which is unnamed is inaccessible unless you had a ladder.  There was a rope, but with only one person I wasn't able to climb up. That rounded out my second day.

I devoted the third day to driving the Montezuma creek road.  There were some ruins I wanted to see there that were away from the Cedar Mesa group along with a Kiva that the BLM had restored.  There is an excellent blog that details this area  http://www.southwestbrowneyes.com/ the writer also works at the Monticello Welcome Center.  I was looking specifically for the 3 Kiva area and Honeycomb Ruin and found both of them, along with a winery/orchard.

One more night and then I am headed home tomorrow.  One the way home a took a photo of this lovely appendage.  I don't know what this is called, but I love it.

In closing I must quote Thoreau--

“This curious world we inhabit is more wonderful than convenient; more beautiful than it is useful; it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used.”

― Henry David Thoreau