Exploring Ancient Ruins! — To whoever is not listening to the sea

A couple of things struck us as we explored the ancient ruins in the Flagstaff area. One, is their abundance. If this is a topic of interest for you, this is pretty good place to be.

Second, was surprise at the fact that we were actually allowed to walk in and on some (not all!) of these ruins. If you want to try for yourself, you can find a virtual tour of pueblo ruin here.

Third, which is also something we experienced at Kitt Peak, is the complicated reality that we have national parks, with thousands of vacationers visiting them, on land that is sacred to the native cultures that have lived in these areas for centuries. We know this because there are signs all over telling us this and asking us to act accordingly. We haven't yet decided what we should do with this information, but ponder it. And try our best to act accordingly.

Fourth, is how seemingly little we know about the people who lived in these dwellings. The narrative at most of the monuments if full of the phrase: "We don't really know".

Montezuma's Castle and Montezuma's Well

The Aztec's had nothing to do with Montezuma's Castle, it was built and used by the Sinagua people. Unfortunately, it was named by early European-Americans who didn't know any better, and I guess no one has thought to change the name since.

In any case, it's a cliff dwelling, built 100 ft up, between 1100 and 1300. It was five stories with 45 rooms - that's impressive! As is the case with many of the places we visited, we don't know why people left the dwelling, just that they did.

The cliff dwelling was declared a national monument in 1908 by Teddy Roosevelt. They stopped allowing people to climb up to the dwelling in 1951, due to deterioration of the structure (no kidding!) One thing that hasn't deteriorated, however, is the diorama they built in 1950 to show visitors the internal structure of the pueblo. They are still using it!

Rufus visits a stream near Montezuma's well.

Montezuma's Well is about 10 miles from Montezuma's Castle. It's a "sink" (big hole in the ground) fed by natural springs. It's a verdant area in the midst of semi-arid landscape - quite beautiful.

Montezuma's Well - note there are structures built in the side walls, at top left.

Wupatki National Monument

You can take a lovely driving tour through this monument, which was declared such in 1924, visiting a variety of pueblos along the way. Unlike the cliff dwelling at Montezuma's castle these ruins sit in a large expanse of grass lands with the painted desert in the distance. They are amazing to come upon. Driving through this national monument is one of the coolest things we've done to date...happily it's only about 20 miles from us, so we return often.

The dwellings at the monument remain important to several modern day tribes, including the Hopi, Zuni and Navajo people. Some Navajo lived on monument lands through much of the last century but were moved off, or left as, they were no longer permitted to graze sheep on the lands.

The entire area is environmentally and archeologically sensitive and there are limited hiking opportunities. However, the park offers a lottery for guided, overnight camping excursions into the backcountry. We were not able to take advantage, but can certainly see why one would want to!

Other ruins in the area, which we haven't yet visited, include Tuzigoot pueblo and Walnut Canyon cliff dwellings.