A Mojave Desert Transit - 2011

 

A Mojave Desert Transit

The day started with four hours of packing for my 4-Corners trip. By 1:15 PM, I pulled away from Casa Carrie, with my Pioneer travel trailer in tow. As floodwater rose in the Atchafalaya Basin, I headed out of LA through the high desert, via the Pearblossom Highway. On the north slope of the San Gabriel Mountains, clouds of snow obscured several peaks. In late May, avalanche chutes were thick with fresh snow. It was 56 degrees on the highway, so 32 degrees at higher elevation was not a stretch.

 

On high desert cruise control, I was doing 60 mph on approach to Victorville. Deflecting the blur of Burger Kings and McDonalds from my eyes, I blew through town and headed north on Interstate I-15. My next stop was Love’s truck stop in Barstow, for fuel and a leftover chicken leg from last night’s dinner.

 

Taking Interstate I-40 East, towards Needles, CA, I picked up a tailwind, pushing me forward at 40 mph. Other Magellan GPS users might be familiar with the dreaded “Ludlow Dead Zone”. Perhaps it correlates with the big Ludlow earthquake in 2008. Since that time, I cannot transit in either direction between Ludlow and Needles without a major malfunction on my Magellan Crossover GPS. Not only does the screen freeze, but also a big red “X” appears over the usual green of the satellite indicator bars. Twenty minutes and twenty miles later, I resuscitated the device and got it working again. Am I the only Magellan GPS owner in the country who repeatedly hits the Ludlow Dead Zone? I do not want to attribute this strange phenomenon to paranormal activity, so I hope someone will step forward and comment on all of this.

 

Shortly after getting my GPS back on beam, I exited I-40 East at Essex Road, about 30 miles short of Needles. After another 20 miles on somewhat rough roads, I achieved my destiny, which was to arrive safely at Hole in the Wall Campground in the Mojave National Preserve. Thank you, Senator Diane Feinstein for championing the cause of 3.5 million acres of fragile and beautiful landscape. To stay here for but one night is to know both the wind and the beauty of our Desert Southwest.

 

According to my indoor/outdoor thermometer, after sunset the temperature here dropped one degree every ten minutes for the hour that I paid attention. In the low 60’s at sunset, it is 46 degrees now at 1:00 AM. The wind, which fell at dusk, plays now among the roof ornaments on my coach.

 

My only media tonight consisted of an AT&T 3G-voice connection and my Verizon 3G “MiFi 2200” wireless data card. No TV… thank goodness. When was the last time any of us spent 24-hours or more disconnected from all interactive media? My last foray off the grid was for two days, over two years ago, at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. In three days, I shall be in Chaco Canyon again, studying the ruins and reveling in my disconnectedness.

 

During my previous visits there, I wrote several articles about the place on my blog. Having recently learned the term, “pre-Puebloan” from the author, Craig Childs, I used it in my 2008 article about the Kin Klizhin ruin near Chaco Canyon. Less than three years later, if you Google “Kin Klizhin”, that article appears on page three of the web results. If you then click on “images”, my pictures of Kin Klizhin are interspersed throughout the first five pages. Alternatively, if you Google “pre-Puebloan”, my 2008 article on Kin Klizhin is second only to the Wikipedia article which defines the term. Switching to image-results, two of the first five pictures are my own.

 

I write about these search results not to feed my own ego, but to tell “dear reader” that he or she can stake a claim on their favorite word or phrase and then see the results of their labor (or passion) in almost no time. The secret is to write with originality, publish your own pictures and then… go back and do it all again (and again).

 

For the next several weeks, that is exactly what I plan to do – travel throughout the Four Corners and write about what I see, hear and feel. Please join me as I explore the last American frontier and the deserts of our mind.

Email James McGillis

 

By James McGillis at 01:28 AM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link

Envisioning A New Moab Mountain Landform - 2009

 

Envisioning A New Moab Mountain Landform

In May 2009, we departed Los Angeles, California, and then traveled Interstate Highways I-15 and I-70 to our destination in Moab, Utah.  After two days and 700 miles (1125 k) of mountain and desert driving, we neared our goal.

 

As the late afternoon sunlight slanted across a desolate stretch of desert, we spotted a forest of billboards and an oasis of trees to the north of I-70.  With its unexpected splash of greenery, the City of Green River, Utah lay hidden amidst that foliage. The former railroad and mining town became famous in the 1930’s with an anti-peddler law that some say was a thinly disguised anti-vagrancy law.  Henceforth, many Western town blatantly the "get out of town before sundown" law henceforth known as The Green River Ordinance.  Well into the 1960s, official roadsigns at the entrance of many Utah towns boasted, "Green River Ordinance Enforced Here".  It was like saying that the town had "no parking", even if one did not have an automobile. Today, Green River is home to nearly one thousand people, almost twenty percent of whom call themselves Hispanic or Latino.  With "prior rights" determining senioity in western water rights, Green River's acequis (water ditches) dated back to the 1830s, when it was a shallow-water crossing along the Old Spanish Trail.  Today, Green River appears to be the most well watered town in the deserts of the West.

 

Twenty-one miles east of Green River, we reached Crescent Junction, which was our turn-off to Moab, via US Highway 191 South.  Although designated by census takers as “a populated place”, we found no population figures for this dusty crossroads.  The place supported little more than a combination gas station and convenience store.  Over the years, we have passed through Crescent Junction many times.  Although the main building has stood throughout, sometimes we find a business operating there and sometimes we do not.  On this visit, the “Stop & Go” appeared to be open for business.  Its sagging banners and many hand-painted signs gave out a halfhearted plea for recognition and recompense.  Its painted plywood cut-out characters evoke an ersatz tourist attraction.

 

As with many other highway routes in the West, a narrow strip of flat terrain determined the location of Crescent Junction.  During the 1830s, Spanish Americans pioneered the Old Spanish Trail through here.  In the 1850’s, Captain John W. Gunnison surveyed a rail line through here and to the west.  In 1883, Gunnison’s dream became a reality when the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway laid tracks through here.  During the twentieth century, US Highways 6 & 191 intersected and shared routes through Crescent Junction, followed in the 1960s by Interstate Highway I-70.  Natural gas pipelines and fiber optic communications cables now share that route, as well.  Despite the crowding of transportation and utilities through the junction, it retains the look of a sparcely populated place.

 

In contemporary American culture, we consider any place in the West with two hundred or more years of European-stock settlement to be old, if not ancient.  With its raw, dry landscape, current day travelers may have difficulty believing that this area was once inhabited by what we can legitimately call "the Ancients".  As proof of Ancient habitation, abundant Indian rockart at the nearby Book Cliffs dates from between 2000 BCE and the 1800s CE.  That span of continuous culture was almost twenty times longer than the continuum of White men in the West.

 

Before commencing the forty-mile drive south to Moab, we paused to reflect on the stark beauty of the surrounding desert.  As the setting sun illuminated the Book Cliffs to the north, we wondered what artifacts of our contemporary culture might endure at Crescent Junction several thousand years hence.  Extending our consciousness to a group of future desert trekkers, we heard them conjecture that we, who would be their “Ancients” were the creators of a then extant sandstone-clad pyramid, jutting skyward from behind the Stop & Go at Crescent Junction. 

 

Recently, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) project managers and engineers began relocating 135 acres of uranium tailings from Moab, Utah to Crescent Junction.  If they and the public have a sense of history and a sense of humor, desert travelers of the future may well see that pyramid in the desert. 

 

After decades of delay, five trainloads of nuclear-contaminated soil now move each week across the desert.  The train travels back and forth, from the fragile depository by the Colorado River at Moab to a fully-lined hardpan disposal site at Crescent Junction. 

 

If lack of imagination and traditional landfill techniques prevail, the new uranium pile will look much like the old one, which is so nondescript that it barely shows in photographs taken a mile or two away.  With its flat top and natural red-dirt camoflage, the pile is out of sight and too often out of mind.  If anyone has a mountain that they would like to hide, they should come to Moab and see if they can even locate the uranium pile.  However, if the DOE staff uses its collective imagination, they could construct a Crescent Junction Pyramid to rival the Great Pyramid of Giza, in Egypt.  With a raw material stockpile covering one hundred thirty-five acres, buried up to 200 ft (61 m) deep, they should have an easy time.  If they construct a new pyramid at least 455 ft (135 m) high, Moab, Utah, or perhaps Crescent Junction could claim bragging rights over the tallest organic, nuclear-powered pyramid in the world.

 

Why create a pyramid in the desert?  The single word, “tourism” should be enough to get residents of Grand County, Utah interested.  Imagine that place, twenty or thirty years in the future, let alone two thousand years hence.  If the DOE can mitigate radiation danger at the new site, “See the New Seventh Wonder of the World”, could become a long-term motto for the site. 

 

In order to transport materials from the existing uranium pile, the Union Pacific Railroad recently rebuilt the roadbed and upgraded the rails on the Cane Creek Subdivision between Moab and Crescent Junction.  By limiting future pyramid-access to sanctioned rail visits, Moab could create a railway excursion business, similar in scope to the long running one in Durango, Colorado.  Tourists could leave their automobiles in Moab, visit the pyramid at midday and return to Moab in time for dinner.  Although more tourists would visit Moab, highway miles driven would decline.  Since the new uranium pile is a necessity, it behooves planners to make it every bit as attractive to tourists as the natural wonders so abundant in the surrounding Canyonlands area. 

 

Currently, there are few pyramids of any consequence in the U.S.  The only stone-faced pyramid we are aware of is the Ames Brothers Pyramid, near the town of Buford, which is a bit west of Cheyenne, Wyoming.  Standing at the highest point on the first transcontinental railroad in 1869, the pyramid is of modest height.  Located less than a mile from current Interstate I-80, the pyramid's location on a grassy knoll allows it to stand out against the Wyoming sky.  Forgotten by all except locals, curious passers-bye and those who study railroad history, we note that the brothers’ teamwork in the public and private sectors made the words “Union Pacific Railroad” part of American history.  Imagine the goodwill that the current incarnation of the Union Pacific Railroad would garner if it were to cooperate once again in the building of an All American Pyramid.

 

The City of Moab, Utah’s Grand County, the Union Pacific, the State of Utah and the United States DOE together have the opportunity to transform a nuclear pariah into a beautiful and sacred place.  By studying and using as models, other remote, spiritual sites, DOE planners could borrow the best aspects of each and create a monument to peace and nuclear safety that would endure beyond our time. 

 

Hotel and casino planners created the pyramidal Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Why should we not create a real pyramid in Southeastern Utah?  By combining the windswept, solitary feeling of the Ames Brothers Pyramid with the remote magnificence of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, contemporary planners could create a monument of lasting value.  When completed, the Moab/Crescent Junction Pyramid should stand-alone, with nothing more than a railroad siding, an interpretive center and a footpath near its base. 

 

Imagine a post-nuclear age when schoolchildren from all over the world might visit the pyramid.  Docents familiar with the history of “Moab Mountain” could tell the story. 

 

The story would begin with man’s lust for power, in the form of nuclear weapons.  After World War II, nuclear frenzy was so strong that men and machines moved mountains of uranium ore to Moab Utah.  There, they extracted the Earth’s most dangerous and unstable elements.  During the course of its operation, the not-ironically named Atlas Uranium Mill utilized over 420,000 tons of sulfuric acid and unknown amounts of caustic soda to leach radioactive isotopes out of the raw ore.  When the mill shut down in the 1980s, all of the chemicals, buildings and equipment utilized during its thirty-year operating life were buried at the site.  Although extraction wells later dotted the site, a natural stream running beneath the pile continued to conduct unknown quantities of radioactive material, chemicals and heavy metals into the adjacent Colorado River. 

 

Over the following twenty-five years, group consciousness slowly shifted from fear of the “Other” to fear of our own powers of self-destruction.  As consciousness continued to evolve, fear of immanent nuclear disasters became stronger than the ephemeral security possession of the nuclear weapons offered us in the first place.  Beginning in the late 1980s, a coalition of government agencies, private citizens, environmental groups and the press identified and publicized the scope of the nuclear dangers at Moab.

 

In 2005, we learned more about ancient, paleofloods on the Upper Colorado River near Moab, Utah.  A DOE study determined that “the geometry and position of ancient Colorado River gravels buried under the surface of Moab Valley show(ed) that the river has shifted back and forth across the mill and tailings site in the recent geologic past”.

 

Our future docents' parable would include both historical and ancient information.  If a flood the size of at least one that hit the Moab Valley since 2000 BCE were to occur in the near future, much if not all of the uranium pile could wash downstream towards Lake Powell.  As we know, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles all rely on Colorado River water for a significant percentage of their water supplies.  If a megaflood were to hit Moab prior to the removal and relocation of the uranium pile, release of its carcinogens and mutagens could render much of Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California uninhabitable.

 

As the docents said to their future visitors, the megaflood held off until early spring 2015.  By then, DOE engineers had protected the pile with a riprap rock casing, similar in construction to the Castaic Dam in Southern California.  At the time of its construction, Castaic Dam's conservative design was considered to be a "overkill" solution to contain Castaic Reservoir.  After the 1928 collapse of the nearby St. Francis Dam, engineers and the public alike demanded that the Castaic Dam be built to the highest seismic standards.  Tested soon after completion by the nearby 1971 Sylmar Earthquake, Castaic Dam stood undamaged.  Not ironically, the cross-section of Castaic Dam is similar to the profile of the Great Pyramid at Gisa, Egypt.  Both are expected to last for a long time into the future. 

 

In 2018, the Colorado River tested the uranium pile’s temporary encasement, but it held fast against the flood.  By 2035, when the original pile was gone, workers who had started their careers moving the uranium pile used their final working years to remove the old Moab containment dam.  As their final contribution, they reused all of its boulders as cladding for the new Crescent Junction Pyramid.  If that stone encasement could withstand the force of a megaflood along the Colorado River, they felt confident that its reuse at pyramid could shelter that new mountain for millennia to come.

 

As the docents of the future ended their tale of fear and hope, students reflected on how we humans had used and abused Mother Earth.  Old Moab Mountain was a monument to ignorance, greed and fear.  New "Moab Mountain" stood as proof that the wisdom of the Ancients revealed itself to mankind in the early twenty-first century and that we listened.

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 05:23 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link

Chaco Canyon - Where the Well Went Dry on Two Civilizations - 2008

Where the Well Went Dry on Two Civilizations

During my 2008 trip to Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, I had the opportunity to visit one of my favorite places in all of the Southwest – Kin Klizhin Ruin, located at the very edge of the Chaco Culture Historical Park.  Situated eleven miles to the west of the Visitor Center, one first takes a dirt road, then a four wheel drive road over open country to get to Kin Klizhin.

 

Last September, on my trip to Kin Klizhin, I startled a large herd of elk that was watering at a small catchment basin just off the lonely dirt track.  This spring, there were no elk to marvel at, but I did take the time to drive up to the derelict Aermotor windmill that stands on a prominent hill near the dirt track that serves as an access road.

 

The Aermotor Windmill Company is famous throughout the West, as the dominant maker of windmill water pumps.  As the average water table has sunk over the years, many of these windmills have fallen into disrepair and destruction.  Although the welded steel towers can withstand wind speeds approaching tornado-strength, the active mechanism of the windmill is much more delicate.  Thus, many of the West’s windmills are little more than shattered remnants of their former elegant, yet utilitarian selves.

 

This particular windmill had a cast-iron storage tank the size of a large home swimming pool.  Held together with hundreds of bolts and coated with rust-preventative tar and paint, the sandblasting wind has created a scene (below) of unexpected artistic effect after all of these years.

 

Although the sky threatened rain, there was not a drop of water anywhere in or near this former human made oasis.  When the water gave out, the land could no longer support cattle grazing, leaving this relic for the occasional visitor to ponder.

 

Archeologists have hypothesized the Kin Klizhin Ruin as the farthest outpost directly related to Chaco Canyon and its unique pre-Puebloan Indian culture.  Standing on a hilltop, the original structure featured an above-ground ceremonial kiva that is unique to the Chaco area. 

 

Ancestral Puebloan residents of this “early Chacoan visitor center” dammed the Kin Klizhin Wash, which is a seasonal tributary to the Chaco River; itself dry most of the year.  There is evidence that early residents planted extensively and used irrigation water to sustain their crops.   One can imagine a pre-Puebloan tourist or pilgrim making his way over many miles of arid desert, only to find this substantial structure, standing as a cultural outpost and welcome center for those who approached Chaco Canyon from the south.

 

Standing at the Kin Klizhin Ruin, a current-day visitor can see for miles, but other than the ruin, the only sign of man is the single dirt track that leads back past the abandoned windmill to what we call civilization.  It is widely suspected that drought and water shortages around 1200 CE contributed to the  Great Disappearance of Chacoan culture.  Here, in the last fifty years, drought and water shortages similarly led to the demise of the ranching culture near Chaco.

 

As I stood at the ruin and stared, I realized that the temperature was dropping fast and that rain clouds were approaching.  There was little time to contemplate the fine architecture and solidity of the ruin.  Instead, my instincts told me that it was time to make a run for my truck, parked one hundred yards away. 

 

By the time that I was halfway to the truck, the rain hit.  Once safely inside the cab, I watched as sheets of water quickly washed the road dust from my windshield. 

 

On my way back to my campsite at Chaco Canyon, I encountered a lone driver in a pickup truck not unlike my own.  If not for the truck color being different, I might have mistaken him for me, as it is quite common to meet one’s self both coming and going in the lonely and mysterious desert surrounding the Kin Klizhin Ruin.

Email James McGillis

 

By James McGillis at 10:30 PM | Travel | Comments (2) | Link

Lizard-Man Sighting at Chaco Canyon Ruins, New Mexico - 2008

Lizard-Man Sighting at Chaco Canyon Ruins, New Mexico

On May 21, 2008, I continued my personal tour of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico.  At 2:00 PM each day, a park ranger or volunteer takes those who are interested on a tour of  Pueblo Bonito, the grandest Pre-Puebloan Indian ruin in all of North America.  Arriving early, I took a self-guided tour around the huge masonry artifact.

 

Built, rebuilt and added to from 800 CE to about 1200 CE, the complex was at its peak around 1100 CE, with large ceremonial kivas, granaries and multi-story dwellings.  Excavated and placed in a state of arrested decay through the judicious use of concrete and native capstones, one can get a good feeling for the grand affect that Pueblo Bonito must have had on tourists and traders in its heyday.

At sundown, many people gather in the great plaza at Pueblo Bonito, perhaps to soak up the spirituality of the site or to commune with the souls of those who made this the ceremonial center of a once-vast culture.  At sundown, I prefer the less crowded sites, where the wind and birds are my only company.

 

This particular afternoon, I decided to take the self-guided tour starting at the end of trail, then making my way back from section to section, “ending at the beginning”, so to speak.  My intuition told me that I might see different things than I would if I took the same old trail in the same old way.

 

About half way around the trail, there was a reward for my iconoclastic approach to the tour.  While people were passing me going the other way, I came across a huge bolder cleft by its fall from the canyon rim.  Upon it was the image of what I would call “Lizard Man”.  Facing west, into the sun, the profile of a half-human, half-lizard was warming himself in the afternoon light.

 

Those who say it cannot be true that a spirit chose to show himself to me that afternoon might want to stick to the paved roads and sanitized attractions of our ubiquitous theme parks.  There, they can rest assured that even if something looks “real”, it is probably “real-fake”. 

 

To those who are interested in meeting Lizard Man or other ancestral Puebloan spirits, take the Pueblo Bonito trail backwards, in place and time.  When you round that corner where he stands, if he wishes to, he will make himself known.  Either way, I assure that he is there.

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 09:23 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link

Chaco Canyon 2008 - Camping at a Place of Sand and Rain

On Wednesday, May 21, 2008, I hooked up my travel trailer and drove from Homolovi Ruins near Winslow, Arizona to Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, via Interstate I-40 and Gallup, New Mexico.  During my transit, a cold front swept over the High Southwest deserts of Arizona and New Mexico, providing a forty mile per hour tailwind to my highway travels.  Although I ate dust and sand every time I got out of my truck, the good news was that I got excellent gas mileage.  As I approached my destination, the temperature dropped from 100 degrees f. to 65 degrees f.

 

Chaco Culture National Historical Park, my destination, is located over thirty miles off the nearest paved highway, regardless of which road you travel to get there.  If you are seeking an “off the grid” experience, with no mobile telephone, broadcast TV or electrical services, Chaco might be the place for you.  Gallup, New Mexico is the nearest city, almost 60 miles to the south, so the night sky is as dark as what I experienced camping at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

 

Besides the allure of peace, quiet and solitude away from our over-amped contemporary culture, Chaco Canyon, lies at the nexus of an ancient and long vanished Pre-Puebloan culture, popularly known as the Anasazi.

 

Having visited Chaco Canyon the previous autumn, I wanted to see and experience its stark beauty again, this time in the spring.

 

Winter and summer are the long seasons in the high deserts of New Mexico, with spring and fall often last only a few weeks.  As I blew in to Chaco, along with the dust of a desert sandstorm, spring appeared to be over. Shriveled spring flowers along the roadside foretold of the coming dry season.  Or so I thought at the time. Before I could set up camp, the weather had changed to colder and wetter.

 

From the west and south, clouds quickly began to build.  Soon I saw virga, hanging like a veil in the sky, with rain clouds following not far behind.  By the time I unhooked, leveled and secured my coach, the rains started in earnest. The sound of rain on the roof of my coach did not let up that evening, and lasting well into the night. If you plan to camp at Chaco Canyon, be sure to add good rain gear to your list. 

 

As I made my way to the visitors’ center the next morning, it was a cold and breezy 43f degrees. After paying my user fees, I sought a recommendation for a short hike. I did not wear foul weather gear, so in the event of a downpour, I wanted easy access to my truck. The friendly volunteer in the old visitors center suggested the Una Vida ruins hike. Its trail started from the parking lot where my truck already stood. 

 

Taking the volunteer's advice, I shared the short path to the ruins with a friendly couple, but saw no one else in the area until my return, an hour later.  Looking back down from above, a north-facing masonry wall at Una Vida intrigued me.  It appeared to have a face on it, as created by its symmetrical windows and door.  To me, it looked like the face of the world's largest Hopi Indian kachina (or katsina) doll.

 

Above the Una Vida ruin (Una Vida means “one life” in Spanish), sheltered by a stone overhang, was a collection of well-preserved Indian petroglyphs.  They stood out well for my camera in the morning light.  Similar enigmatic rock etchings abound throughout the High Southwest.  Because of their protected location, few acts of defacement or vandalism were evident here.

 

Upon returning to  my campsite, I walked among the ruins of an ancient farmhouse, which lay beneath the overhang of a cliff, less than fifty yards away.  Simply by readjusting my gaze to look for telltale signs, there too, I found ancient Indian rock art.

 

To my surprise, I came upon what appeared to be a face staring out at me from the canyon wall. This little character had sorrowful, yet knowing eyes. Splashed with ancient red ochre, Cracks and crevices above and around his eyes evidenced a large cranium made no sound and never moved.  Still, his eyes followed me wherever I moved throughout his rocky domain.

 

Having traveled as much as I have in the southwestern US, I have learned to keep an eye out for the spirits that dwell in these canyons.  Like the Egyptian carvings of the Pharaonic Period, were these silent sentinels formerly human? Or are they representations of non-physical spirits trying desperately to gain the attention of those humans who pass by their yearning, yet immobile countenances? 

 

Such is this place, Chaco Canyon, where people are rare, ancestral Puebloan spirits abound and history lays enigmatically all around, even within the public campground.

 

From Chaco Canyon to Moab, Utah would entail two hundred sixty-one miles of driving, and it was time to go.

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 01:31 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link

 

Chaco Canyon, New Mexico Memories 2007

After two days “off the grid” at Chaco Culture National Historical Park, I reemerged into my normal “wired” lifestyle. As of this writing, I am in Taos, New Mexico, where I will attend the Quantum Leap Celebration. The Celebration starts later today and will extend across the next two days.

 

If you visit Chaco Canyon, you will find its geographical features as interesting as its ancient culture. The Pre-Puebloan “Chaco Culture” is on of the great mysteries of the past millennium. In the high and dry Canyonlands of Northwestern New Mexico, native cultures rose and fell between 600 CE and 1250 CE. During that time, the populous built masonry buildings of great elegance and unique architectural style. 

 

These “great houses” or “great kivas” flourished throughout the Four Corners area (Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah). Then, in the thirteenth century AD, the high culture of Chaco disbanded, with evidence of deconstruction and destruction by the Anasazi, who originally built these huge structures.  As they disbanded, possibly heading south to greener valleys, their Great Disappearance became one of the enduring mysteries of humankind. When they were done with Chaco Canyon, the ancients set fire to many roof timbers and toppled many walls. It was as if they did not want anyone, including themselves to settle again in that place.

 

Everyone loves a mystery. Why else would people flock to this desolate and long-deserted place? We all want to know who they were, what they were doing here and where they went. To learn more about this now vanished culture, I suggest reading “ House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest”, by author Craig Childs. With scholarly detail and down-home story telling, Craig brings ancient sandstone haunts back to life.

 

While in Chaco, I sought out the least-visited great house, known as Kin Klizhin, which is nine miles out a 4-wheel-drive road. On the road, the only living things I saw were birds and a herd of elk. When I arrived at the Kin Klizhin Ruin, the visitors’ register indicated that I was the first person to visit there in the past six days. With no mobile telephone, no radio and no sounds other than the wind, I spent a couple of peaceful hours there.  Occasionally, I ducked behind ruined walls, seeking shade from the hot afternoon sun.

 

Sometimes, our lives feel overfilled with actions and activities. Although there is apparent loneliness to places like Kin Klizhin, I found it ironic that it was once a “welcoming center” for the Chaco Canyon Culture. For the fast-walking Pre-Puebloans, Kin Klizhin was less than one day away from the combination Mecca, Las Vegas, World’s Fair, Vatican, Angkor Watt, Taj Mahal, which we now call Chaco Canyon.

 

Why did they come to Chaco Canyon? Why did they leave? These questions are simple, but definitive answers continue to elude us. From my perspective, I believe that a unique, but inexplicable group consciousness arose then in the Four Corners, centering itself in Chaco Canyon. With its celestial aspects, geographical features and ancient cultural alignments, we look forward to our next visit.

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Email James McGillis

 

Flame-Out in Phoenix, Arizona 2007

Thursday was my day for both old and new energies. After a morning appointment in Phoenix, I returned to my coach in Black Canyon City, ready to move on... or so I thought.

The predicted high temperature in Phoenix that day was 109 degrees, so I had left the air-conditioning in my coach set at 80 degrees. Upon my return, I sat comfortably in my coach. As the day progressed, the temperatures outside were rising, thus putting greater strain on my A/C.

Around Noon, my A/C faltered briefly, but I was obliviously unconcerned. Ten minutes later, the machine seized, causing a flash fire in the controller box above my head. After flipping off the circuit breaker, I could still hear crackling sounds for another thirty seconds. Then smoke poured out of one of the A/C vents. “Not good”, I said to myself. Since it was time to get out of Phoenix anyway, I called ahead to the RV repair shop in Flagstaff and arranged for a diagnosis of my problem later that day.

When I arrived at Flagstaff, the elevation of 7000 feet made for a pleasant 82-degree air temperature. The friendly staff at the RV repair facility quickly diagnosed my problem. “Catastrophic meltdown of the controller box”, caused by an unknown failure in the A/C unit was the story. “We have a new one in stock and can install it this afternoon for $825”, the service manager said. “Let’s do it”, I said.

While waiting for the installation, I spent an hour with a pleasant British couple who were waiting for a toilet-repair on their rented Cruise America RV. They were plying their way across America on Old Route 66, wherever they could find it. Among other things I learned, gasoline in Great Britain is the equivalent of $20 per gallon and that in the south of England, you cannot water your yard with a garden hose.

By seven PM, I was ready to start out on the 177-mile trip east on I-40, to Gallup, New Mexico. Arriving at the USA RV Park here at 10:45 PM MDT, the owner had graciously waited for me in the office until I appeared.

If we represent Old Energy through fossil fuels, central air-conditioning, mobile telephones and plug-in electrical, Thursday was my Old Energy day. The only New Energy I could find was in the help that people provided me, good company as I waited for my coach and acceptance of that which I could not change.

At noon today, I will start out for Chaco Culture National Historical Park (www.nps.gov/chcu/), in Northwestern New Mexico. If Phoenix, Flagstaff and Gallup are Old Energy, “on the grid” cities, Chaco Canyon is a New Energy, “off the grid” place. For the next two days and nights, I will be where no mobile telephone or wireless internet connection dares to go. I will be visiting ruins of “pre-Puebloan”, “Anasazi” or “pre-Columbian” cultures, depending on which description you might like to use. From 600 AD through 1200 AD, Chaco Canyon was the premier human cultural center in Western North America.

Tonight, one hundred miles form the nearest large city, I will stargaze with the “local” telescopic community on a near-moonless night. After two nights in Chaco Canyon, I will “emerge” from the land of ancient cultures and make my way to Taos, New Mexico on Sunday, September 16. Until then, please accept my offering of Happy New Energy to you.

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Email James McGillis