Colorado Day 6: Canyons of the Ancients National Monument

 Yesterday at Mesa Verde we followed each other from overlook to overlook and competed for parking spaces. Today was the road less traveled--miles of awesome desert countryside with hardly any tourists.

We started at the Anasazi Heritage Center, a museum which didn't open until 9 AM, which gave us a chance to sleep in. This shows what the inside of one of those pit houses we saw yesterday might have looked like.

We climbed a long, but gentle, ramp to the Escalante Pueblo behind the museum.

Amazing to imagine real people living here a thousand years ago.

At Lowry Pueblo 25 miles down the road, we could enter this door

To this resorted ancient kiva.

Nearby was a grand kiva, an ancient community center. Modern Pueblans have said these figures on the floor probably represent the Summer People and the Winter People.

A woman we met at Lowry Pueblo told us that we didn't have to do the whole loop trail at Painted Hand Pueblo to see the ruins. (The map labeled two places as "technical scramble," which we figured wasn't us.) From near the top we could look down on some of them.

When I took this picture, I hadn't even noticed there were ruins on top of those rocks sticking out.

We drove on and crossed into Utah to Hovenweep National Monument. Wow! A whole slough of Pueblo ruins around a canyon. This picture of one end of Stronghold house shows Twin Towers, Eroded Boulder House, Rim Rock House, and Tower Point in the background.

Hovenweep Castle is the most impresive, with a couple other ruins within sight of this point.

I filled my CamelBak with ice this morning for a good water supply and wet my bandana for air conditioning around my neck, but by this time it was nearly dry. The longer route all the way around the canyon involved climbing down and back up. At 3 PM the temps were in the mid 90s. Hiking further should be a morning activity. Not this afternoon.

The route back to Cortez passed Sand Canyon Pueblo and trail system. From the road it looked like a fabulous sandstone canyon with awesome rock formations. Too late. Too hot. Next time. Starting in the morning.

Today's route:

Tomorrow we head back north on the second half of the San Juan Skyway. The itinerary in my notes looks like it will be another incredible day.