Some people believe triangles and their pyramid cousins are imbued with magical or mystical powers—the Bermuda Triangle, for example. I am not one of those people. But I do know an interesting triangle when I see one.
As an armchair archeologist, I’ve been interested for years in the mysterious Native American people known as the Anasazi, sole inhabitants of the Four Corners region of the Desert Southwest for 700 years before disappearing around 1300. Where they went and why has puzzled scientists since their cliff dwellings were discovered in 1888.
Only recently have some generally acceptable explanations been suggested.
Though the Anasazi have been studied intensely for over 100 years, there’s one interesting fact that no one seems to have noticed. If one draws a line between three of the best known centers of Anasazi culture—Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde and Canyon de Chelly—the result is a virtually perfect equilateral triangle 100 miles on a side.
Mystical significance? Probably none. But the “Anasazi Triangle” does make it easy for travelers to visit each site while also absorbing other interesting facets of the Four Corners area. And, for Anasazi ruins, it is definitely not “seen one, seen ‘em all.” Each of the three sites is dramatically different and well worth a visit.
While some of the mysteries surrounding the Anasazi have yet to be solved to everyone’s satisfaction, the “why” and “where” questions have been answered. Why these ancient people built elaborate stone cities and cliff dwellings in the Four Corners over a 600-year period, only to abandon them quite suddenly, has been attributed to several factors, including overpopulation and climate change. Sound familiar?
Life in this region had always been precarious at best. But a drought from 1276 to 1299 struck the final blow and led to migration to locations with more water, particularly the Rio Grande River basin to the east, what is now Hopi country in northeastern Arizona and Zuni territory in western New Mexico.
Thus, the Anasazi didn’t mysteriously disappear. They, instead, are ancestors of the Pueblo People who, on abandoning the Four Corners, constructed the hundreds of pueblo villages that the Spanish found when they arrived in 1539.
Incidentally, the name “Anasazi” has recently become a victim of a form of political correctness. When the Navajo migrated into the Four Corners region after the Anasazi had left, they looked at the ruins and named their missing builders Anasazi, a Navajo word that’s been variously defined as “ancient ancestors” or “ancient enemies.” The odd thing, of course, is that they were neither ancestors nor enemies of the Navajo since the two groups never co-inhabited the region.
In any case, the preferred name is now “Ancestral Puebloan People.” But, despite the fact that all the park literature has been reprinted, I suspect “Anasazi” will stick.
Chaco Canyon
Chaco is a buff-colored high desert canyon in New Mexico that many believe to have been the ceremonial, administrative and economic center of the Anasazi world. Dozens of the great stone houses in Chaco Canyon were connected by roads to over 150 other pueblos throughout the region. These roads are not detectable at ground level, but still may be seen from the air.
Without question, Chaco’s most astonishing ruin is Pueblo Bonito with its 600 rooms, mortarless walls towering five stories, and dozens of ceremonial kivas—large underground circular structures used for religious ceremonies.
Other major ruins dot the canyon floor. And the walls are littered with ancient and accessible petroglyphs. Several calendar systems have also been documented, including the famous “sun dagger” high on Fajada Butte, that appears to have been used to track the solstices.
A nine-mile circular blacktop road starts at the visitor center. One may drive and then walk to all the major sites on well-tended gravel paths. Guided tours are available, but all the sites are well marked to facilitate self-guided touring.
The park’s Gallo Campground offers 35 camping/RV spaces, but there are no showers or hookups. (The campground will be closed for about a month, starting sometime in March, while the septic system is being repaired.)
Mesa Verde
While looking for lost cattle in a Mesa Verde canyon in 1888, rancher Richard Wetherill instead found large and elaborate cliff dwellings. Thus began a lifelong passion for explaining these mysterious structures and the people who built them. His infatuation would also take him to Chaco Canyon, where he was among the first to excavate and study those ruins. Wetherill, in fact, is buried at Chaco and memorialized there.
The road up to Mesa Verde in Colorado makes one wonder how a man on horseback could have found missing cattle or anything else for that matter. The road climbs to 8,500 feet on 20 miles of exhilarating switchbacks and ridgebacks leading to the Mesa Verde visitor center.
The canyons of the mesa—still verde—hide some of the largest and most beautiful of the Anasazi cliff dwellings. Unlike Chaco, only one of the major Mesa Verde sites is available for self-guided tours. Spruce House is at the bottom of a canyon behind the park’s extensive and excellent museum. A five-minute walk down a paved trail leads to this 114-room, eight-kiva structure—the one initially discovered by Wetherill.
One popular Spruce House feature is a reconstructed and roofed kiva visitors can access by ladder.
Tickets to tour other popular larger structures—Cliff Palace, Long House and Balcony House—must be obtained in advance at the visitor’s center. Since Mesa Verde is the busiest of the three sites on the triangle, it’s wise to obtain tickets early in the day. Tour groups are limited in size.
The park’s Morefield Campground has single and group campsites with some utility hookups and an RV dump station. Sites are available first-come, first-served. Services include groceries, carryout food, firewood, showers and laundry facilities.
Canyon de Chelly
{mosimage}Canyon de Chelly, translated “narrow canyon,” is also known as the little Grand Canyon. From the mesa east of Chinle, the nearest Arizona town, the canyon is invisible. Then as one approaches, suddenly the world falls away—1,000 feet down vertical and vertiginous red walls.
Most visitors see Canyon de Chelly from overlooks on the north or south rims. But the way really to experience the canyon is to ride down into it on a tough little mustang with a Navajo guide.
Day excursions or overnight trips are offered by Totsonii Ranch on the South Rim (www.totsoniiranch.com). A four-hour day trip, for example, costs $120 per person. An overnight adventure runs $335 per person. The Navajo guides are licensed and recertified annually. Some prior horseback-riding experience is recommended, particularly since the switchback trail taken about 1,000 feet down into the canyon is steep and narrow. Fortunately, the mustangs are docile and very surefooted.
My two-day, 25-mile ride was guided by Gabriel and his 14-year-old daughter, Gabrielena. Gabriel explained that he is training Gabrielena to follow in his footsteps. He brings her along at every opportunity to learn from his many years of experience.
The two days in the canyon led me to the conclusion that it was the canyon I came for—not the ruins. Although there are small cliff dwellings, they are high on the canyon walls and inaccessible. The Anasazi climbed down to them from the mesa above using footholds laboriously cut into the rock.
The best-known and most accessible ruin in the canyon is White House. It, however, is not Anasazi. White House was constructed by the Navajo about 300 years ago in the fashion of Anasazi structures. Gabriel explained that the building’s white coating, some of which remains, was created by mixing pinion sap and fine white sand.
For those not inclined to tour on horseback, a hiking trail from the South Rim to and from White House is one alternative. Motorized tours are also available. Jeeps and flatbed trucks with seats run on the dry riverbed. Gabriel, however, has no use for them.
“Just kick up dust,” he said. “Go too fast for people to see anything.”
My lasting memories include the deep canyon’s silence—broken only by the creak of saddle leather, the hypnotic plop of hooves in the billowy white riverbed sand, and a sleepless night under a dense canopy of stars watching the Big Dipper wheel around the North Star.
There is no on-site camping, but Cottonwood Campground is a half-mile south of the visitor center. Open year around on a first-come, first-served basis, it has 104 RV and tent sites. From April to October, facilities include flush toilets, picnic tables and drinking water. There are no shower facilities.
Acoma Pueblo
Whichever way one chooses to travel the triangle, I strongly recommend visiting Acoma Pueblo—Sky City—an hour east of Gallup on Interstate 40. Acoma is one of the 19 remaining pueblos in New Mexico to which the Anasazi migrated when they abandoned their homeland. A guided tour of this ancient site—sitting atop a 300-foot-high mesa—reveals not only where the Anasazi went but also the hardships and brutality they suffered later under Spanish rule.
As one of the final destinations of these ancient Native Americans, a visit to Acoma is a fitting conclusion to a journey around the Anasazi Triangle.
Lorin Robinson, who recently retired as a communications manager with 3M Company, lives in Afton, Minnesota. His passions include adventure travel, photography and writing.
IF YOU GO
There are several ways to access the triangle. Perhaps the easiest is off Interstate 40, successor to the old Route 66.
If you are traveling east from Albuquerque, exit near Grants to travel the northwest leg of the triangle. From Grants, take state routes 509 and 57 to Whitehorse and the entrance to the Chaco Culture National Historical Park. The visitor’s center is another 20 miles on a gravel road.
For Mesa Verde National Park, continue on 57 north from Chaco to Highway 550. You can take 550 to Durango, Colorado, and Highway 160 west, or turn west on Highway 64 to Farmington, New Mexico, and then north to Mesa Verde on Highway 140.
The southwest leg of the triangle to Canyon de Chelly National Monument (pronounced “de Shay”) takes you on 160 through Cortez, Colorado, onto the huge Navajo Reservation with the eerie shape of Shiprock on the left, floating on the desert heat-haze. Just past the Four Corners Monument, turn south on Highway 191 to Chinle, Arizona, jumping off point for the canyon.
Incidentally, the Four Corners Monument is worth a quick stop. For a small fee paid to a Navajo gatekeeper, one can straddle the boundaries of four of the wildest states of the old Wild West—Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado.
If you are traveling east on I-40 through Arizona, you can reverse the itinerary—making Canyon de Chelly the first stop—by exiting on Highway 191 north just before the New Mexico border
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