We spent the weekend down in the Comb Ridge area camping and exploring, looking for signs of the ancient ones. Saturday we hiked into Butler Wash to a very interesting petroglyph panel called the Wolfman Panel. The panel contains what appears to be a half-man, half-bear creature swinging his clawed arms. Somehow all of our photos from Saturday disappeared,you can ask Alina what happened.
Sunday we hiked into a site called Double Stack Ruin in an unnamed canyon,it took us a while to find it as we took a few wrong turns but eventually we wandered into the ruin. One portion of it sits about a hundred feet off of the canyon floor and the larger portion is on the ground level. Most of it has toppled but several large walls and the remains of the kiva are still standing. The interior walls of the kiva had intricate little geometric designs on them. My thoughts always turn to the families and kids that were raised in these sites. What we think of as wilderness, was a thriving population center 800-1000 years ago. It is estimated that there were more people living in San Juan County 1000 years ago than there is now.
Sunday we hiked into a site called Double Stack Ruin in an unnamed canyon,it took us a while to find it as we took a few wrong turns but eventually we wandered into the ruin. One portion of it sits about a hundred feet off of the canyon floor and the larger portion is on the ground level. Most of it has toppled but several large walls and the remains of the kiva are still standing. The interior walls of the kiva had intricate little geometric designs on them. My thoughts always turn to the families and kids that were raised in these sites. What we think of as wilderness, was a thriving population center 800-1000 years ago. It is estimated that there were more people living in San Juan County 1000 years ago than there is now.
Photo of me yelling at the kids to keep off the walls
We also ran into two different Navajo structures in the canyon. Both were what appeared to be skeletons of small hogans or sweathouses. The interesting thing, was one of them was built almost directly beneath the Anasazi ruin. Generally, traditional Navajos stayed away from Anasazi sites, but these were built directly beneath them.
Cotton textile that River found at Double Stack Ruin.
2 comments:
Love the picture of you yelling at the boys!! You never yell at the kids! Come on! What a fun trip- I hope its warm next weekend when we venture down. It will be fun!!!
It is so weird to think of you wandering around Comb Ridge. You must let my dad take you to some ruins and the solstice site that he loves more than his children. I would also like to recommend studying Posey... Posey's trail is on Comb Ridge I do believe. Before the stroke my dad was really researching Posey and he is sure he found the bullet that killed him. May he rest in peace, Posey... not my dad. He's still here. :) Even though I sometimes laugh at how much he "gets into" things.
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