The varied landscapes of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado have long been home to varied cultures. You can easily travel around and see only deserts or mountains but there are amazing stories embedded in these landscapes. Remains of thousands of years of human history are scattered at our feet if we just know where to look and know how to see stories in now silent places.
On the highway (160) between Durango, Colorado and Pagosa Springs among ponderosa forests and rivers pouring out of the San Juan Mountains on their way to the vast dry San Juan Basin to the south, two stunning sandstone towers several hundred feet high stand just south of the road. They grab your attention and for many people they pull on you to climb up and look out at the vast surrounding region. This is Chimney Rock National Monument.
When you drive or walk up to the top of Peterson Mesa, or Chimney Rock, you find an amazing view of the Pagosa peaks, the northern San Juan Basin, and, you find a complex of amazing Pueblo ruins including a large kiva (underground ceremonial room) perched on a narrow rocky ridge with steep drop-offs’ on all sides. These old buildings were built around the year 1000 and have a direct relationship to the massive structures at Chaco Canyon, about 50 miles away in the San Juan Basin.
Scientists think that the Chacoan people chose to develop the village on top of the ridge adjacent to Chimney Rock because people could see great distances from there and they could use fires to signal people closer to Chaco Canyon. Like those at Chaco Canyon, the buildings at Chimney Rock had walls and other features aligned exactly with astronomical phenomenon such as the equinox and solstice and movements of the moon, especially the 18.6 year lunar cycle where the moon moves gradually north and south within a range of distance then stops before reversing. The moon rise at the northern “lunar standstill” can be observed from the Chacoan buildings at Chimney Rock with the moon rising exactly between the two towers.
Why do people think the great pueblo on Chimney Rock was associated with Chaco Canyon and what’s interesting about Chaco Canyon? There are huge stone Pueblo ruins at Chaco Canyon that were built around 1000 by people whose decendents became the people of Zuni, Hopi, San Ildefonso and other contemporary Pueblo villages. These giant Chaco towns have always mystified archeologists who have various ideas about what went on in Chaco Canyon during the peak of the occupation and construction between 900AD and 1100 when the place was abruptly abandoned.
The various pueblos (buildings) in Chaco Canyon were not farming/hunting villages such as the later Pueblos in the Rio Grande Valley. The Chaco buildings have hundreds of small and large round rooms that many people long thought were kivas, or ceremonial rooms. This led people to think Chaco may have been a religious center. But Dr. Steve Lekson of the University of Colorado understands that the many round rooms were not kivas, but were pit houses such as the Puebloan people had lived in before they started to build large above ground buildings.
Further Dr. Lekson understands that the Chaco Canyon buildings served a similar function to the castles in England, German and Ireland from the Middle Ages. These were large buildings occupied by a powerful person with his servants or other workers. The power of these people expanded outwards throughout the region and the buildings at Chimney Rock were yet another large building occupied by a powerful person with people there to work for him including slaves.
Other features associated with Chaco include roads that extended from the canyon out in various directions. These people had no livestock and they didn’t have the wheel but their road system went to outlying Chacoan towns such as the place now in ruins at Salmon Ruins near Aztec, New Mexico. Scientists believe that many of the people who left Chaco Canyon in 1100 moved to the buildings in ruins at Aztec National Monument in Aztec, New Mexico.
When you visit Chimney Rock you find simple rock structures below the massive upper buildings. Apparently these were worker quarters. There are also remains of pit houses that were occupied by Pueblo ancestors in the centuries before 900AD.
What a fantastic place. The north slopes have Douglas fir forests while the Mesa Verde formation shale pokes through ponderosa pine and oak forests down below.
The US Forest Service manages Chimney Rock National Monument as instructed by President Obama who designated the national monument in 2012 and placed management under the US Forest Service, San Juan National Forest. A non profit interpretive association takes care of the visitor center and the tours for visitors. They do an excellent job
When you visit you can have a picnic at tables at the top of the mesa or at tables near the cabin visitor center at the base of the mesa. Right now the Forest Service is making major improvements to the visitor center area.
Pull on in. Ride your mountain bike to the top and enjoy some Durango beers looking out over this incredible region. – Tom Ribe
