We left on Sunday the 1st of May.  We had some business to handle in church so we finished that and were on our way.  This was going to be our biggest trip so far and our biggest trip until the fall.  We had what we needed and the dogs were being taken care of by relatives and friends.  So off we went.  We stopped in Wellington for fuel and the kids ogled a tank sitting on the back of a flatbed.  But we were on a mission and so we didn’t stay long and were off again.

We went down through Hanksville.  A beautiful drive, through some of our favorite places.

We got to Natural Bridges campsite pretty late but it was a rainy Sunday night, people should be heading back to school and work.  No matter, the campground was full.  We camped up Deer Flats road.

 

We didn’t realize it at the time but we were on the southern foothills of the proposed Bears Ears National Monument.  The place is truly beautiful and deserves every ounce of protection we can give it.

I asked the Rangers what their thoughts were about it and they said that they had received direction not to talk about it.  “They were influencing public opinion.”  I’m not sure where this direction came from but it seems pretty tyrannical to suppress opinions so that you can do what you want and not have any repercussions.

By virtue of Asher being being in fourth grade he got a National Parks Pass that is good until September.  For free!  We’ll definitely get our money out of this one.

Natural Bridges is the first National Park service site to earn the designation of a “Dark Sky Park”  From the

 

International Dark Sky Association.  This means that the light pollution is below a certain level and it is dark enough to see more than the normal amount of stars.  The definition from their site is: The core area must provide an exceptional dark sky resource, relative to the communities and cities that surround it, where the night sky brightness is routinely equal to or darker than 20 magnitudes per square arc second.  I researched it for a little while and I still don’t understand it very well.  Maybe someone can help us out in the comments.

We didn’t see too many of the stars that night as it was pretty rainy still but it was peaceful.  It is unbelievably refreshing to spend even one night in places that are so far from our “civilized” world.

After talking to the Rangers the next morning they confirmed our thoughts and we decided to hike down into the canyon at Sipapu Bridge and then hike along the stream to Kachina Bridge and see Horse Collar ruins on the way.  It was fantastic.

Sipapu bridge was really pretty.  A huge opening and the stream running through it was a beautiful beginning to the hike.  Sipapu is the Hopi word for the the openning through which we entered into this world.  It is symbolized by the small hole on the floor toward the back of many Kivas.  We’ll talk more about Kivas on the next posts.  They are a big deal.

Only a little ways into the hike we walked into a huge, low alcove and saw a beautiful collection

of hand prints ranging in color from deep red to light yellow, there were a dozen or more of then.  It was great to see these tiny hand prints and know they came from adults.

Traveling through desert riparian areas is a truly great experience.  I hope that I can get enough of it into my children that it has a similar effect on them that it does on me.  We were so into the hike and criss-crossing the stream that we missed Horse-collar ruins altogether.  It was Asher that looked back at one point and asked;

“Isn’t that Horse-collar?”

His visual memory is pretty amazing.  He was right, it was.  So we backtracked a little and climbed up to it.  Very cool little place.  Two different sets of ruins and a bunch of little left overs up on a shelf, neatly hidden.

This structure is a little strange.  The two rooms that you can see through the windows are connected by a small tunnel that travels beneath the floor between them.  The insides of the rooms are stuccoed similar to the outsides that you can see.  The ‘nose’ part of the structure that sticks off the front in between the two windows is tightly built so it could be storage.  An interesting theory is that it was a smoking house for preparing meat.  I really have no idea what it was used for.  It’s pretty cool, whatever the case.

Kachina Bridge was huge and thick.  The youngest of the three bridges it is incredibly thick.  According to the Hopi language, a Kachina is a spirit being.  The bridge was named that for the pictographs of dancers around the base of the bridge.  We missed these.  We played a little at the base and then began the climb up and out.

The clouds had settled in again and were getting darker.  We hurried but didn’t make it.  It started raining and it felt great.  To me at least, the kids got cold quick so we decided, in the interest of time and comfort, for me to run and get the car.  I could happily run National Park trails the rest of my life.

We had to see Yucca House this day as well so we swung past Owachomo bridge overlook, the Visitor’s Center on our way out and then were on our way.

Yucca House National Monument is an interesting place.  I don’t think I would recommend it to very many people.  It is almost completely un-excavated.  There is a little bit of a wall showing but not much more.  It certainly doesn’t look like much.  You also have to park in someone’s driveway and walk on a boardwalk across their lawn to get to it.

It makes you wonder why it is in the National Park Service at all.  It certainly doesn’t compare to the rest of the native parks we have seen.  Nor is it scenic or hold any opportunities for recreational opportunities.  The Monument came about as donations from landowners.  They wanted to preserve the site and this seemed the best way to do it.

It was dark and we had to be at the Mesa Verde Visitor Center early so we bounced over to Mancos State Park

We ate oats the next morning and refreshed the kids on how to clean their bowls with dirt.  The sun was still low in the skies when we pulled out of the campsite and backtracked the little ways to Mesa Verde National Park.  At the Visitor Center we Asher and I ran on ahead to the reservation desk to lock in four tickets to Balcony House.  We had done our homework and had been to Mesa Verde before and knew this was our goal.  Our kids were focused on Balcony House had no hesitation about the challenges.

The line at the desk was short but took a long time.  There are a lot of questions involved with many of the tours at Mesa Verde.  We got our tickets and had a few minutes before we had to be at the trail head.  We wanted to get up there before we did anything else so we traveled up onto the mountain and then filled up our water on top.  It worked out perfectly.  We spent a few minutes on top of Balcony House mingling with the others waiting for the tour.  Then the Rangers showed up and announced it was time to begin.

We moved en masse towards the gate.  Asher, as usual, was dressed in his Ranger uniform.  He wears it until we make him take it off so we can wash it.  As he passed through the gate the Ranger received the tickets from Asher and said, “Thank you, Ranger.”  It was great to see the change that came over my son.  In that moment he became a Ranger.

He has earned numerous Junior Ranger Patches and badges, he has studied the parks until he can tell you the story of their creation and the geology of a few of them as well or better than I can.  He has even been offered a job when he turns 18 at Arches National Park.  But something changed inside him when he was spoken to as a Ranger by a Ranger.  The physical change was something to see.  But since then I have seen a deeper change that in hindsight I can track back to that moment.  He has become a Ranger, Heart and soul.

He wants to protect beautiful places.  He wants to take places that are at risk and wrap them in the armor of the National Park Service.  We have explained to our kids the difference between The NPS, The Bureau of Land Management and The Forest Service and it is not enough for him to have the lands in public hands because he can see that some hands are not very caring.  He is already a warrior who tries to protect those that need it.  He is not great at it yet but he is learning quickly.  He has learned that our lands need protection.  He knows that if left to the forces already in play there will be an ever tightening noose around the places that we love and he is thinking furiously about how to fix the problem.  All from being treated like a Ranger by a Ranger.

Balcony House was amazing.  The location and the design were simply preposterous.  The builders of Mesa Verde did what most of us only dream about doing.  They decided that they wanted to do something they did it.  It was a huge risk to build on a cliff like that.  Balcony House is especially impressive because of how remote it is.  The access used to be incredibly restrictive.  A tiny foot path and some reasonably aggressive climbing was the only way in and out of the structure.

It’s also possible that they were simply terrified of being attacked.  This seems a little far fetched to me considering their choice of location for a house.  It doesn’t seem like a decision of a coward to me.  The other very really interesting thing about Balcony House is that is is split into two parts.

The Ranger, who was fantastic by the way, he was well spoken and learned on all of the aspects of Mesa Verde

that we had questions about, pointed out that it was likely that the back rooms area was a area set apart for religious experiences.  Looking at it through this lens I saw a great many things that would fit with my sense of spirituality and the individual practice of spirituality.

I love church buildings.  I love mostly the sacrifice and dedication that they represent.  I have traveled a great deal and seen some of the most amazing architecture in the world and most of it is wrapped around a intense belief and love for God.  Whatever the problems we see in the people of the churches around us (and there are plenty to find and be angry about) the buildings and intent of the people and churches are usually originally pure.  I respect that.

I felt the same thing here.  The builders of Balcony House built it primarily for survival.  But for them survival meant a great deal more than food, water, shelter and safety.  Death was very near to them and I think spiritual death to them was a much bigger problem than physical death.  Everyone dies physically but no one need die spiritually.  That is why it was such a big deal to them.

We thoroughly enjoyed Balcony House.  It had been on our list for a while and it did not disappoint.  The only caveat to the Mesa Verde experience was that they were the outliers.  The main communities in the area were Yucca House, where we had been the night before, and where Mancos is now.  Mesa Verde was beyond the suburbs.  I wouldn’t call them outcasts but they were definitely not mainstream.

The reason we make such a big deal about it is that it is such an extraordinary situation and it is so well preserved.  Mesa Verde is a truly amazing park.  We make such a big deal about the cliff dwellings and it’s easy to forget that people dwelt in much greater numbers and for a much longer time up on top of the mesa.  It was only at the end of their time in the area that they moved into the alcoves.

This was a great beginning to one of the best trips we have been on.  There is always a little regret that we don’t spend enough time in each place but I am confident that the children are growing up right and learning some very valuable lessons.  We are getting a good overview of the parks and next year we are planning a much more in depth exploration of some of these fantastic sites and wilderness’.  Thank you for your patience.  We will have another post soon.