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| Hiking | 5.25 Miles |
800 AEG |
| | Hiking | 5.25 Miles | 3 Hrs 30 Mns | | 1.50 mph |
| 800 ft AEG | | | | |
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| partners | | After an awesome breakfast of pancakes and Cag, the crew was ready to tackle our first major task for the day - hiking the South Mesa Trail to Tsin Kletzin. The morning crowd had dissipated from Casa Rinconada, so armed with our permits from Ranger Unhelpful we shouldered our packs and began hiking. The sun was warm but there was a suggestion of a breeze and it was early enough that the heat was not oppressive. We work past the BC sites and reach stop 10, where we start making for the cliff face. An overweight woman meets us coming down and tells us this is the steep way up. Oh well. I'd prefer to get the steep stuff out of the way first. We switchback up the northern face of the cliff and come to a crack. Mike wedges his way up first, and I follow, using a slightly different tactic. Randal brings up the rear, and once at the top of the crack we break. The view is amazing, with the core of downtown Chaco visible from the ledge. We snap photos, sit down, drink some water, and then move on. The trail continues upward, but at a more sedate angle. We talk and BS along the way as we skirt a low bluff. Finally, after crossing a slickrock basin, we reach what we think is the top of South Mesa. Upon climbing the sand hill, we realize we were mistaken; another looms in front of us. I remark that this is like Grand Gulch - endless sand rises. I turn out to be wrong, however. The next sand dune presents us with a view of Tsin Kletzin - a low mound of a Great House standing on the southern horizon. The trail beelines for it, so we make our way along. Slowly the ruin draws closer. At the northwest corner of the ruin the trail diverges - one to the west to loop back to the parking area, the other to the ruin. Feeling as if it would be pointless to just continue along the trail without seeing the ruin, we head for the massive structure. We ponder walls and doorways and eventually climb down into a kiva. We are surprised to see the kiva's walls covered with historic inscriptions dating back to 1917! The masonry is nice and well executed as well, so we take a break in the shade to contemplate our location. I consult my GPS, which tells me that I missed the best time to fish in the ruin by a couple of hours.
Since it was Father's Day and we were at a high point on South Mesa, Mike and I bring out the cell phones. Sure enough, we have some service! We place calls to our fathers - though Mike's dad isn't home, Randal and I both get through. Kind of an interesting experience, standing on the remains of a building 1000 years old, talking on the phone to someone 900 miles away when there isn't a single modern edifice in sight. I'm not sure if technology amazes me or scares me more at points like that.
After completing our survey of the ruin and surrounding area we head towards South Gap, a prehistoric gateway to Chaco Canyon, in the rapidly heating day. We anticipated great views of the Gap, as well as points south and west, so when we arrived at the overlook for South Gap we were slightly disappointed. The lizard and daisies along the trail were pretty and all, but the overwhelming view turned out to be not-so-overwhelming. It was pretty, but not what we had expected. A couple hiking the trail in the same direction came up on us and made some small talk, but we were in the mood to make tracks. We had designs on the Pueblo Alto loop after lunch, so we passed them as they took a break. The knife ridge descent was interesting, but after dropping into a side canyon off of South Gap the view closed in and the heat came back in full force with no wind. We were making good time, and soon made it to South Gap proper. There we discovered that the old South Road was not as visible as the brochure had made it out to be, and that the Park Service had an access road through the bottom of the canyon. We poked around briefly, looking for the remains of the South Road, and we found it - badly degraded just to the west of the modern two track. As we made our way back towards the truck, talk about lunch increased. The idea of doing Pueblo Alto began to take a back seat to lunch and maybe going to some outlier such as Pueblo Pintado. A drive in an air conditioned vehicle for the remainder to the day had its appeal. The closer we got to the truck, the more the plan changed towards Pintado. When we reached the truck Randal fired up the A/C. As we drove back towards the campsite the air conditioning had a mesmerizing effect. We decided, as we fired up the campfire to grill up some Buffalo burgers and popped a Cag that Pueblo Alto could wait. We would be on the road...
Next - Pueblo Pintado: http://hikearizona.com/TL.php?ID=52458 |
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Wildflowers Observation Light
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"The only thing we did was wrong was staying in the wilderness to long...the only thing we did was right was the day we started to fight..."
-Old Spiritual
My book, The Marauders on Lulu and Amazon |
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