"Hole in the Wall, Mojave" - Alone in the Desert, Twenty Miles from I-40 - 2008

"Hole in the Wall", Mojave National Preserve

On June 1, 2008, I departed Navajo National Monument, Arizona and transited to the Mojave National Preserve in Southeastern California.  Once I reached Flagstaff, Arizona, my two-lane highway driving ended and I headed west on Interstate I-40 for the balance of the trip.

 

In the 1970s, I-40 replaced or bypassed much of US Route 66, also known as “America’s Highway”.  From an elevation of over 7000 feet in Flagstaff, I-40 rises and falls until it reaches a low point of 457 feet at its Colorado River crossing, near Needles, California.

 

From an elevation of 3962 feet at Moab, Utah, the Colorado River falls over 3500 feet during its 500 nautical mile trip to Needles, or an average drop of about seven feet per mile.  During that trip, the river encounters the Grand Canyon, as well as Glen Canyon Dam, Hoover Dam and Davis Dam, all three of which thwart its freefall.

 

Having pulled my travel trailer over 440 miles that day, I scanned the I-40 roadside for signs of the California National Preserve, where I planned to camp.  On a previous trip, a tractor-trailer rig had blocked my view and I had overshot my turnoff by twenty miles before realizing my mistake.  Finally, as the sun dipped in the west, I spotted the turnoff for Mitchell Caverns and Hole in the Wall Campground.  As I transited the last twenty miles to my camp, the sun set behind the dry mountains of the Mojave National Preserve. 

 

Arriving at the campground in twilight, I was surprised to see that there was no campground host, nor did I see campers at any of the twenty-four campsites.  As eerie as that seemed, I selected a campsite and leveled my travel trailer for the night.  Later, as I cooked dinner on my propane grill, I noticed that one other campsite had lights showing, but that was at the far, upper end of the campground.

 

In the morning, I awoke by the sound of my fellow campers driving away.  After their departure, I had the entire campground and its hundreds of acres of surrounding desert entirely to myself.  Some humans fear being alone in the vast open spaces, but I relished the opportunity to meditate and commune with nature.

 

Having camped there twice before, I hiked again to the top of a small ridge, which has a 360-degree view of the area.  I checked on a relict cactus patch, including species not found elsewhere nearby and found the cacti healthy and growing, despite the persistent drought of the past decade.  Living as they do among the rocky outcroppings of the ridge, the terrain acts as a buffer from the fires that plague our western deserts as much as they do our western forests.

 

Although it was June in the Mojave Desert, the air temperature that day reached a peak of only 82 degrees Fahrenheit.  With gasoline prices in the area hovering around $4.60 per gallon, the lateness of the season and the fact that it was a Monday meant that few travelers were taking advantage of our great California deserts, which was fine with me.

 

Seduced as I was by the splendor and solitude around me, I forgot about time.  It was a rude awakening when I realized that it was mid afternoon and I had over 200 miles to travel before arriving home in Los Angeles.  Finally, I pried myself away and headed back towards civilization.  After nineteen days in the “four-corner states” of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah, it was time for the pleasures of home.

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By James McGillis at 04:14 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link

The Spirit of Edward Abbey Returns to Navajo National Monument - 2008

The Spirit of Edward Abbey Returns to Navajo National Monument

On June 1, 2008, I decamped from the idyllic Navajo National Monument in Northeast Arizona and headed for Simi Valley, California.  Before leaving the monument, I reflected on Edward Abbey’s words in his classic book about Arches National Monument, Desert Solitaire, first published in 1968. At the time, Abbey decried what he saw as the destruction of primitive areas throughout the Southwest, as many of them opened to automobile tourism. Here are his words:

"Navajo National Monument. A small, fragile, hidden place containing two of the most beautiful cliff dwellings in the Southwest – Keet Seel and Betatakin. This park will be difficult to protect under heavy visitation, and for years it was understood that it would be preserved in a primitive way so as to screen out those tourists unwilling to drive their cars over some twenty miles of dirt road. No longer so: the road has been paved, the campground enlarged and modernized and the old magic destroyed."

Times change, people change, but upon his death in 1989 at the age of 62, Abbey’s consciousness on earth evolved no more. Abbey was primarily a naturalist, with a gift for description of our North American deserts and woodlands. Secondarily, as an anarchist and anarcho-communist, he waxed poetic on fighting the federal government, as exemplified by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), The National Park Service (NPS) and the Department of Interior (DOI) in general. Although his greatest anarchistic act up to that point was to pull up some road survey stakes at Arches National Park in Utah, Abbey often gets credit as the inspiration for such troglodytic and destructive groups as the Earth Liberation Front (ELF).

The dominant energies of the 1960s coalesced around protest, as exemplified by the movement against the Vietnam War and the "tree-spikers" in the Northern California Redwoods. It was an age of "pushing against", whose legacy haunts us still. Self-righteous and well-meaning protesters may burn an animal science laboratory only to find that that they burned the wrong laboratory. Extreme "Right to Lifers" see no irony in their active support for a "Death Penalty".   

I sat quietly that morning in the campground that Abbey saw as a modern abomination and opened up a channel to his non-physical consciousness. Feeling that he was stuck in a near-Earth realm by the angst and anger he still felt at the time of his death, I asked him to accompany me in a tour of the area. Although there was no verbal or visible communication between us, I allowed him to see the place as I saw and loved it.

Bypassing the small visitors’ center, we walked along the crudely paved pathway towards the Betatakin (ledge house) Ruin, less than a mile away. In a desire to protect these fragile cliff dwellings, the NPS placed its only Betatakin viewpoint several hundred yards away on the opposite side of the canyon. Signs admonish visitors not to make loud noises, as Betatakin’s natural amphitheater amplifies sound waves. The loud voice of a careless visitor could weaken or destroy parts of the well-preserved pre-Puebloan settlement.

Navajo National Monument is a misnomer, honoring the fact that early non-natives who studied it associated its ruins with the Navajo Nation, within which its boundaries lie. There are, however, no Navajo ruins at Navajo National Monument. Craig Childs, in his book House of Rain identifies the early occupants as the "Kayenta Anasazi". Abandoned as these sites were, around 1300 CE, after as little as fifty years of occupation, Betatakin and Keet Seel rank with Mesa Verde and Hovenweep as last redoubts of a vanishing culture. The spring-fed relict forests in the monument’s canyons attest to the general drying of a once abundant environment, thus contributing to the brevity of human occupation in the area.

Returning on foot to what Abbey denigrated as a modern campground, we found its thirty spaces nicely sited on a 7300 ft. elevation mesa that offers spectacular sunset views. The spaces accommodate trailers of up to thirty feet, but the larger fifth-wheel and Class-A RVs must go elsewhere. There was water available, but no store, showers or sanitary dump. Having lived in a trailer home less than thirty feet in length for his two summer seasons in Arches National Park, I smiled at the thought that Abbey might wish to deny others a brief but similar pleasure in this beautiful place.

As I drove away from the campground, I reflected on the term "arrested decay", first coined to describe the preservation activities at Bodie, a ghost town in the high desert of California. The NPS has arrested the decay of the ruins at Navajo National Monument largely by limiting direct access to the sites. From the visitors’ center to the roads, trails and campgrounds at Navajo National Monument, the NPS seems to have listened to Edward Abbey’s ghost. Once established in the 1960s, these improvements have changed little, if at all in the past forty years.

I find myself in agreement with Abbey on one thing. Despite its supposed ruination in his time, as I departed I secretly hoped that this serene and beautiful place would enjoy its current state of arrested decay long into the future.

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By James McGillis at 04:51 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link

The La Sal Loop Road, from Moab to Castle Valley, Utah - 2008

The La Sal Loop Road, from Moab to Castle Valley, Utah

Driving the La Sal Loop Road is one of the highlights of any visit to Moab, Utah.  Talking to the natives, I heard that it is best if one drives first to the foothills of the La Sal Mountains, then over the pass to Castle Valley and finally to return downstream along the Colorado River.  By traveling this counterclockwise route, all of the major sights appear in your front windshield, rather than to the side or behind you.

 

Although most guidebooks will direct you south, along Spanish Valley Drive, then up Geyser Pass Road until it connects to the La Sal Loop Road, there is a better way to go.  If you have four-wheel-drive, you can start in Moab at the Sand Flats Road.  By indicating that we were “traveling through”, rather than planning to stay and play at the Sand Flats Recreation Area, we were waved through at no charge.

 

If you take the Sand Flats route, be sure to have an accurate map or Utah Road Atlas, as you might want to verify landmarks and directions along the way.  Still, for an alert motorist, the road is not all that challenging.

 

Along the way, we met only two vehicles, so plan for self-sufficiency in case of breakdown or weather delays.  If you take the Sand Flats Road all the way to its terminus at the La Sal Loop Road, your rewards will include views of some spectacular slickrock formations, a relict forest of Aspens and Pines, Indian caves and close-up vistas of the snow-covered La Sal Mountains.

 

Once you reach the entrance to the Manti La Sal National Forest, you will find an abundance of great places to stop along the road for a romantic picnic or just a walk in the woods.  Although several bicycle trails intersect the road, we saw no cyclists on our visit.

 

With the peaks of the La Sal Mountains still bathed in snow from a late June storm, we elected to stay on the Loop Road, rather than venture into the high country on muddy or impassable forest roads.  With our altitude hovering at 7000 feet, or more, the air temperature along the road can be a relief from the heat of Moab or it can be downright cold, so plan accordingly.

 

Traveling north, then west along the Loop, one soon descends down to the upper reaches of Castle Valley, a well-watered and idyllic retreat for latter-day hippies, ranchers and those who like to live “away from it all”.  Among the benefits of living or visiting in that valley are the sandstone towers, made famous by Chevrolet ads in the 60s and by filmmakers since the time of the earliest Westerns.

 

If you are expecting full services in Castle Valley, think again.  Although there are bed and breakfast establishments, we could find no general store, post office, restaurant or gas station.  In other words, be sure you have a full tank of gas and enough food to carry you through until you get to the resorts and restaurants along the Colorado River.

 

Although you can race around the La Sal Loop in three hours or less, plan to spend an entire afternoon exploring its many wonders.  You will not regret the time spent in its desert and alpine environments.

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By James McGillis at 04:27 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

Nov. 2008 Oil & Gas Leases Threaten Arches National Park - 2008

Nov. 2008 Oil & Gas Leases Threaten Arches National Park

Watch the Video Here

On May 27, 2008, we jumped in the truck and drove north from Moab, Utah on Highway 191.  About four miles short of Crescent Junction, we departed the highway on the right and took the dirt road that heads of on a diagonal "Valley City Road" towards Thompson Springs, a small town where the steam trains of old found a reliable source of water for their boilers.  Although there are few descriptive road signs in the area, we had a Utah Atlas & Gazetteer which indicated that "Valley City Road" connects to the Salt Valley Road, in turn leading to the little-used northeast entrance to Arches National Park.  Since as of this writing, there is no Google entry for the "Valley City Road, Grand County, Utah", perhaps this article will help create a search result for that road

 

 

As we drove from the parched bottom lands at the beginning of the road to its junction with the Arches main road, our elevation and the apparent water table rose steadily.  Soon, the temperature cooled and we saw grassland and wild flowers in bloom. 

 

Once inside Arches National Park, the first thing we saw was the road to Klondike Bluffs.  Having taken that road part way the previous autumn, I knew that our Nissan Titan did not have sufficient ground clearance for that trip.

 

From end to end, the trip from Highway 191 to the Arches main road is about eighteen miles of well-graded dirt or gravel road.  On the Salt Valley Road, we saw only one motorcycle and one other four-wheel drive vehicle.  If you like to visit out-of-the-way places with unique and expansive views, Salt Valley is another “must see” while in the Moab area.  With no development or litter along the road, you will find a near-wilderness experience that is accessible by truck or SUV.

 

Edward Abbey spent six months at Arches in the mid 1950s, when it was a remote and little-visited national monument.  Residing in a trailer near the campground at the end of the Arches main road, Abbey studied and wrote extensively about the fauna, flora and geology of the Salt Valley in his classic book, “Desert Solitaire”, first published in 1967.  Over forty years later, essentially nothing has changed in Salt Valley.  Let us hope that the BLM keeps possible mineral and oil exploration at bay for at least another forty years.

 

Once we were back on the paved road, we proceeded to the “Devils Garden” area at the end of the road.  Devils Garden, a mixed juniper and piñon forest, contains most of the red rock formations in the park.  It features an easy and well-maintained trail that leads to many of the park’s spectacular natural arches, including Landscape Arch, with a span of almost 300 feet.

 

If you like to see animals in clouds or rock formations, there is no place like Devils Garden to find your rock-bound spirit friends.  Some are in plain sight and others show up only when you review your pictures, back at camp.  Either way, this area that Abbey referred to as the hoodoos offers great views in all directions, including the Book Cliffs to the North and the La Sal Mountains to the east.

 

Most visitors to Arches National Park enter at the Main Entrance on Highway 191, just north of Moab.  After stopping at every natural wonder along the road, by the time they reach Devils Garden, often they have “seen enough” of the Arches.  If so, they tend to use the return trip as an opportunity to speed back to the entrance as fast as possible.  In “Desert Solitaire”, Abbey tells a story about a visitor who asks:

 

“Well how the hell do we get out of here?”

“You just got here, sir.”

“I know, but how do we get out?”

“Same way you came in.  It’s a dead-end road.”

“So we see the same scenery twice?”

“It looks better going out”.

 

For many, it is all about the destination, not the journey.

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By James McGillis at 08:49 PM | Environment | Comments (1) | Link

The Moab Rim Escarpment - As it is Above, So it is Below - 2008

The Moab Rim Escarpment - As it is Above, So it is Below

One of the things that I love about Moab, Utah is the juxtaposition of desert and mountain environments.  Midway between those two extremes is the Moab Rim, a towering escarpment that overlooks the Spanish Valley and the town of Moab. 

 

Geology of the Moab Rim

 

According to information on the website “The Geologic History of Moab”, during the “Tertiary Period, the Moab Fault allowed salt to erode, collapsing the center of an anticline.  A fault line runs down either side of the Moab valley, joining just upstream of the Moab Uranium Pile, near the entrance to Arches National Park.  Perhaps because of water running down along the fault line, salt dissolved away deep under the rock of Moab.  The overlying slab sunk down, creating a 'collapsed anticline' that is the Spanish and Moab valley”. 

 

Bisected, as it is, by the Colorado River, one wonders if the whole valley might at one time have been a lake, impounded on the downstream side by that solid rim.  If so, did it slowly and inexorably wear away until the river canyon established itself, finally reaching the natural, smooth gradient that the river exhibits today?  If any geologists know the answer to this question, we would love to hear about it via email.

 

The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River is famous to most visitors as a place where we look down and into the canyon.  The Spanish Valley is a place, similar to Zion National Park where, for the most part, we look up to the canyon rim. 

 

One exception to this is if you hike the Hidden Valley Trail, which climbs 680 from the valley floor to the top of the rim and a final elevation of 5270 feet.  From there, one has myriad views that include Potash, Moab, the Spanish Valley and Geyser Pass in the Manti La Sal National Forest.  Since the whole hike is only two miles one-way, it should be on the “to do list” of every reasonably fit visitor to Moab.

 

If you plan to hike the trail, it is best to start early, before the heat of the day.  Take plenty of water and a camera to document the spectacular scenery and late season wild flowers.  Since this is a protected area, do not stray from the path, as even one off-path hiker can leave tracks that will not heal for years, if not decades in this fragile environment.

 

Another way to enjoy the Moab Rim is from below.  My favorite place for doing this is west off of Highway 191 on Canyon Rim Road, which starts on the south end of the Moab Rim Campark (at 1900 South Highway, 191, Moab, Utah).  The pavement ends just past the power lines that parallel Highway 191.  If you continue up the dirt road, you can park where the road turns right and get out of your car.  With its easy access and immediate remoteness, it is a great place for a disabled visitor to get away from civilization for a bit.

 

If you have four-wheel drive, or are riding a mountain bike, you can continue on to a series of connecting dirt tracks that take you to the base of the Moab Rim.  Either way, there are several desert watercourses (dry, except during a storm) that you can walk without damaging the fragile soils and plant life that you will encounter.

 

One of the best times to visit the base of the Moab Rim is at dusk.  From there, you can watch the sun set behind the rim and see Moab transform from an apparent lake of trees into its nighttime incarnation as a brightly lit tourist town.  You will still hear traffic on the highway, but it is muted and unobtrusive.  After the sun dips below the Moab Rim, the desert air will cool considerably, so bring at least one layer of clothing beyond what feels right while the sun is still up.

 

Since this is one of my favorite places in the Spanish Valley, please do our environment a favor if you visit here.  Bring a plastic grocery bag and fill it with any beer bottles or other small trash you might find there.  If each visitor removes even a small amount of trash, the occasional “hell raiser” will be less likely to see this as an open dumping ground.

 

If the Moab Rim were located anywhere else except among the profusion of natural wonders that surround the Spanish Valley, it would probably rank National Monument status.  Since it is open land and policed on the honor system by the Bureau of Land Management, I hope that everyone who cares about the Moab Rim will help protect and enjoy its unspoiled beauty.

 

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By James McGillis at 07:35 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

An Afternoon By The Colorado River - 2008

An Afternoon By The Colorado River

On Saturday, May 24, 2008, I traveled west and north from Hovenweep National Monument to Moab, Utah, a distance of 120 miles.  Once I got past the ancient Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) roads, the trip north on US Highway 191 was easy, even with while towing my travel trailer.

 

Arriving at the Moab Rim Campark, just south of Moab a day earlier than expected I found that there was no RV space available that night in all of Moab.  Thinking that the remote Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Horse Thief Campground would surely have space, I drove thirty miles up Utah Highway 313, only to find that there was no vacancy at any campsite within fifty miles of Moab.

 

With gasoline right at four dollars per gallon, my sixty mile sojourn to Horse Thief and back cost me around forty dollars.  Although high gas prices are supposed to be a deterrent to travelers this summer, it seemed like everyone within driving distance of Moab had decided to give it one last gasp before mothballing their camping equipment.

 

With nowhere else to go, I drove back to Moab, then south on Spanish Valley Drive to the Pueblo Verde development, where I have a deposit down on a residential building lot.  That night, I camped by the curb at Lot #7, where I plan to build my dream home in the next couple of years.

 

With only six of the twenty-eight lots currently occupied, the setting was tranquil and quiet.  Since my coach is self-contained, I had everything I needed to “dry camp” on the street.  The added bonus was to wake up and see the 360-degree view of the Spanish Valley as it will look when my house stands on that site.  To me, there is no better residential view in America, centered as it is between the Moab Rim and the peaks of the Manti La Sal Range. 

 

For those who are interested, there are one-third acre lots still available for less than one hundred thousand dollars.  If you come upon this entry in later years, do not blame me for not telling you sooner.  The window of opportunity might last into 2009, but after that, prepare to buy at the higher rates that baby boomer retirement purchases will inevitably dictate.  As my father used to say, “Get there early and get a good seat”

 

On Sunday, I moved to my reserved site at the Moab Rim Campark, where I spent the next six nights.  Meanwhile, my love flew from Burbank, California to Grand Junction, Colorado, known simply as “Junction” to the locals.  Picking her up at Walker Field Airport in Junction, I noted that their parking and traffic circulation upgrade was still not completed.  To my dismay, it features a main access point that few if any large RVs or buses could negotiate without overriding the curb.  This is what we in America used to call “Progress” with a capital “P”.

 

After driving west on Interstate Highway I-70 back towards Moab, we cut off at State Route 128, which goes through the abandoned cattle and railroad town of Cisco.  Cisco is famous for a nearby uranium ore strike in the early 1950’s.  Today, it is a crumbling wreck of buildings, many built from surplus railroad ties.  It looks too new to be a ghost town, but to old and decrepit to resurrect as a quaint tourist trap.

 

From there, the old two-lane highway wends its way across open prairie, then through ranch land and finally to the Colorado River, near the site where the historic Dewey Bridge was destroyed by fire in April 2008.  It was a classic case of a child playing with matches in a nearby campground.  His “science project” got away from him and rapidly burned the wooden bridge-deck of the old suspension bridge, a now lost treasure on the National Register of Historic Places. 

 

Pyromaniacs of the world take note.  Karma will seek its own resolution, whether here in this life, or at some future time and place, as determined by the confluence of fates.  There is at least one young boy somewhere in this land who will long remember his lack of judgment that windy April evening.

 

After crossing on the new bridge, the subsequent automobile trip down the Colorado River is its own reward.  Entrenched in a deep canyon along this stretch, the river was only a few days past its springtime, 2008 peak flow.  To the delight of the many rafters, there were rapids where usually one found only sandbars.  As the waters slowly receded, rushing water swept the banks clean of candy wrappers and plastic bottles, leaving the river looking much as it did in primeval times.

 

Along the way, we stopped at the Castle Creek Winery at Red Cliffs Lodge for an early and satisfying dinner.  The winery, billed as “Utah’s first and largest commercial winery” produces good, if a bit light wines that are consistent from year to year.  If you stop there, be sure to take a look at their Moab Museum of Film & Western Heritage, featuring “100 years of Cowboy History”.  Because of its undeveloped remoteness, yet easily accessed services in Moab, many classic western movies were filmed here and in nearby Castle Valley.

 

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By James McGillis at 08:37 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

Ancient and Original Twin Towers Stand at Hovenweep National Monument, Utah - 2008

Ancient and Original Twin Towers Stand at Hovenweep National Monument, Utah

In May 2008, I traveled the 121 miles from Moab to Hovenweep National Monument. After my two and one half hour trip, I arrived at Hovenweep National Monument, in Southeastern Utah.  On my afternoon journey from Aztec, New Mexico, it had rained intermittently and clouds now hid the setting sun.

 

With the visitor center already closed, I proceeded to the small but orderly campground about a quarter mile away.  Since that Friday marked the start of Memorial Day Weekend, I hoped that there would be at least one RV-sized campsite available.  To my surprise, there were two, including one that had no neighboring site and featured an unbroken view to the southeast. 

 

After some four-wheel-drive action in the mud, I was able to situate my nineteen-foot Pioneer travel trailer to take advantage of that spectacular view.  As if on cue from an unseen source, the cold rains came in earnest just as I finished my chores.  Cozy and contented, I settled in and listened to the rain as it refreshed the healthy Pinion Pine and Juniper forest around me.

 

In the morning, I walked to the visitor center, paid my user fees and returned to my campsite.  From there, I began my 1.5-mile hike into and around Little Ruin Canyon.  Before I departed, I observed the fresh rainwater in the nearby slickrock potholes and the red bloom of a nearby cactus.

 

Since almost all Hovenweep visitors start at the visitor center and walk counterclockwise around the canyon, I started out in the opposite direction, hoping for some quiet time before the weekend tourists crowded these spectacular ruins.  Apparently having done something inexplicably right in a former life, I received my reward – I neither saw nor heard another living soul for the first half of my hike.

 

Ancestral Puebloan Indians built the characteristic tower ruins of Hovenweep in the period just before their final and complete withdrawal or disappearance from the Colorado Plateau and the Four Corners Region.  The zenith of their construction here was between 1230 and 1275 CE.  At that time, an elder of their tribe could have witnessed or participated in the planning and building of all the ruins visible in Little Ruin Canyon.  Uniquely, these ruins include circular, square and D-shaped freestanding towers, all within shouting (and in some cases), whispering distance of each other.

 

Conventional wisdom, supported by relevant archeological facts indicates that Hovenweep, along with Mesa Verde in Colorado were among the final redoubts of this far-reaching culture.  Supposedly, chaos reined, as drought, overpopulation, deforestation and internecine warfare gripped their culture.  To me, that sounds like hogwash.  If the culture was in collapse and marauders roamed the land, how did the residents of Hovenweep have time to shape and radius stones for the exterior of their unique freestanding “Round Tower” and flat-faced stones for their unique freestanding “Square Tower”? 

 

My belief, supported only by my observations and the feel of the place is that Hovenweep represented the ancestral Puebloan’s high point of both architecture and civilization.  These towers stood out as their rock-solid achievements and their gift to those of us who come to visit this place over seven hundred years later. 

 

At the peak of Pharaonic Egypt, the high priests and elite of their culture endeavored to reach immortality, exemplified by their process of mummification, but also through their funerary architecture, masks and vessels.  After personally viewing several Egyptian museum road shows in my current lifetime, I would say that they “made it” to eternal life, or at least thus far.

 

I believe that the ancestral Puebloan of Hovenweep, who built a pantheon of sturdy, yet highly aesthetic granaries, ceremonial kivas and everyday houses, had something similar in mind.  Not having technology beyond what we call “stone age”, the ancestral Puebloan focused much of their energy on creating architecture that would outlive them and send those of us who follow a clear message.

 

The message that they left for us was, “Judge us not by anything other than by what you see here.  Walk with us past our gardens; enjoy with us the solid nature of our former existence.  Then ask yourselves, did we abandon this place and travel south in search of water and peace?  Or did we simply do all that we could do in our many lifetimes here, then withdraw to be with Spirit, to rest, relax and plan our return, long after you, the current visitor are gone from this place?  If you stand quietly and stare at what your culture calls ruins, you may indeed see one or more of our spirits still inhabiting the temples in this canyon.”

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By James McGillis at 06:52 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link