Thursday, August 13, 2009

Thursday evening or, Who knew they had wireless in Mesa Verde

Wednesday Morning – Mexican Hat Utah

After posting last night I went down to the river, and laid down staring at the skys… the Percius meteor shower was suppose to peak about midnight… It was a bust… only a few meteors, and those very unimpressive… about 11:30 I gave up when the moon came up…

Next morning, Up, shower, breakfast at a small café next door, now off for Mesa Verde. The café was a hoot… they were a failed store, with some merchandise, a single girl dealing with foreign tourist, serving basic eggs, bacon sausage and such at a walk up counter. You ate outside at picnic tables… I like this place more and more.

North of Mexican Hat is Mexican Hat rock… a large flat rock balanced on a much smaller rock, topping a mesa… I drove down the marked road looking for a photo opportunity, only to find it was shared by a quarry with very large dump trucks… the truck drivers were used to tourists and would pull over and wait for us to pass them, so all was well. Beyond the Mexican Hat rock you entered the Valley of the Gods… equal to Monument Valley but completely undeveloped, except for a BLM dirt road. Many photos were taken.

Beyond the Valley of the Gods, I passed along various local roads, in search of the fabled 4 corners. It’s another Navajo Tribal park… I walked about, took a few pictures, then off to Mesa Verde… Entering Colorado, you are now in the Ute reservation. Just outside the park I passed through Cortez Colorado, and the culture changed, this time to western ranch town… I stopped at the true value hardware for supplies… upholstery tacks to repair my army surplus cot… they had them, along with anything else you could want from camping supplies, guns and ammo, paint, and canning jars.

The park is huge… its miles from the entrance to the campground, then miles to the visitor’s center, then more miles to each of the areas with cliff house ruins. I purchase tickets for the three ranger lead tours, then leave for the first, Long House ruin… I eat a picnic lunch then join the tour. First a tram ride to the train head then a little less than a mile on a steep but good trail… You climb a ladder into the ruin (which isn’t that ruined…) then climb a ladder down out of the ruin… The tour was good, artifact tags were in evidence on pieces of burned wood… afterward I took the tram with Mr. Ranger to visit two overlooks. Since we had time he showed us (3 of us) a recently excavated ruin site on the top of the plateau, and some of the local plants, a Yucca ready for harvest and a young juniper, in a fire zone… Much of the park has burned in the last 12 years, and recovery will be slow, hundreds of years… not at all like the situation at the Grand Canyon.

The ranger, from Massachusetts, was lamenting the fire damage… I found that I as a westerner have come to expect evidence of fire in western National Parks. He loves the park, but has eastern sensebilities… From there I went to the Park Headquarters/Spruce tree ruin site walked the museum, then walked down to the Spruce Tree ruin (again, ruin may not be the right word… in the arid west, protected by the cliffs, these sites are mostly intact… not the ruins one would expect after being abandoned for 700 years.

Then back down the road to the camp site to check in… get a site, set up (this time I set up the canopy, both because it looks like rain, and to provide shade… then off to the ranger talk… on stars… he was not expecting good skies, both smoke and clouds were present, but it turned out well… with the bonus of the Perius meteor shower showing up, a day late, but some great shooting stars… and due to smoke his laser pointer worked really well…. Like the bat beam… a column of light into the sky.

So now, (Wed. night) I am updating the log, for the blog (can’t post until I get an internet connection on Friday, unless one of the rangers or employees has an un secured wireless connection… I may drive near the residences and find out, or not…) It seems strange to be working at the computer in a national park campground, fire nearby, by Coleman lantern light… so maybe I will end the strangeness for now…
Thursday, about 4:00 p.m., back in my camp site… I have discovered the camp store has wireless internet so I will head up there and try to post this a little later.
Today, I took the ranger lead tours at Cliff Palace and Balcony ruins… I note the park service alternates between calling them “sites” and “ruins”… while some are clearly ruins, with only portions of walls remaining, some are surprisingly complete with floors, roofs, and even intact balconies… They also have a conflict on what to call the inhabitants… They alternate with the long used Anasazi and the newer “Ancestral Puebloans”… Anasazi is derived from Navaho, and can mean ancient enemies, so is considered demining by the Hopi, but Puebloans is a term from Europeans, and who have arguably treated the people worse… I prefer Anasazi, but will try to use Puebloans… It all smacks of political correctness…
Its clear when talking to the Park Service staff that there is no clear story, instead there are theories, and speculation, but the folks giving the tours are being guided by one point of view, in a field of study with several defendable points of view… Some rangers are better at accepting other views. There are several back stories… the original excavators, in the 1890’s were better archeologists that some admit… In a sense the local cowboys with help from a Swedish scientist created modern archeological methods here… but they also were pot collectors so must be villains. At one time the archeologists were writing the stories based on excavations, today we use Hopi (and other native American) oral tradition to the exclusion of some archeological evidence.

The two tours (three if you count Long House yesterday) are similar, the guide meets you at the top, explains what you are going to see, gives the scare talk (we are at 7,000 feet, we are going down lots of stair, climbing ladders (some quite tall), Its hot here, take water, take nothing else…) then you descend into the ruin (only after the ranger has collected the tickets, $3.00 each, a bargain) You reach the edge of the site (not ruin, my rules) are told never to sit on or touch the walls…. Then hear the story as presented, with many questions left unanswered.

Beyond the two major sites I toured, I spent much time doing the various loops, and interpretive walks… I saw a coyote, I saw wild, or feral (oh, no, another word conflict) horses… There are ravens everywhere you look.

This was a fast changing culture, from hunter gatherer to early farmers in pit houses near their fields, to stick and dabble houses, now with ceremonial underground round houses (Kivas) but Kivas here were also living quarters during the winter (apparently), to pueblos on mesa tops, to pueblos with towers, to cliff dwellings, along the way there are several masonry styles... I may have read too much to accept all the rangers are telling me… So am buying books, So far my favorite is “In Search of the Old Ones” by David Roberts, but its not available in the Park stores… I suspect he and his views may not be in line with the Park Service’s ideas…

I also find myself critiquing the rangers’ presentations… There is one who tells too much (He knows it so must tell it) and others who have done the talk too many times, and herded tourists up the ladders too many times, and are just not publicly excited about the subject anymore… (in their defense I have been there with house tours, but its common rather than occasional here… I suspect they get together over beers on Friday night and talk about how stupid the visitors are, some are, some are not…)
I find myself organizing my own views on the architecture, and culture…

So, it’s now late afternoon, It’s cloudy, and threatening rain… There is a gusty breeze (a neighbor’s tent has blown over… I will intervene if it heads for the road or places unknown) I have the awing up, so am ready for what happens…

I should post again tomorrow, but again, I am unlikely to post photos… too little band width here in the desert…

Randy

No comments:

Post a Comment