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| Walk / Tour | 0.25 Miles |
50 AEG |
| | Walk / Tour | 0.25 Miles | 1 Hour | | 0.25 mph |
| 50 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Day 1 of the big "Family Vacation" in Greer, we went into Springerville for some supplies, to check out Western Drug, and generally waste a few hours. We called in to the folks at the Casa Malpais museum, and they confirmed that they were still giving tours even though it was sprinkling on and off. So we went in, registered as the only participants on the 11am tour, and watched the painfully slow if moderately entertaining educational video.
Our docent/guide was a very pretty, very sweet young lady who had only moved to Springerville recently. I had hoped for maybe an archeology student, or perhaps a retiree with a passion for history, but our guide was just a girl who needed a job. She knew the site quite well, and had read up a good bit, but wasn't up for the level of debate regarding preservation, restoration and recreation that I was looking forward to. Sigh.
She was also VERY nervous about snakes, which of course made my family quite nervous about snakes. We walked the site with wooden sticks, beating the rocks as we went to warn away the sneaky, slinky critters. It must've worked, because for the first tour in weeks (according to our guide), we didn't see a single slithery-one.
Now, since you all here may have a little more interesting thoughts on the preservation and presentation of archaeological and historical sites, I'll spend a few minutes here divulging my (admittedly non-expert) opinion on the matter. While I think it is wonderful that there are guided tours of this very interesting pueblo, I do not appreciate the signage that is installed which is not only typically wrong, but also disturbs the naturally occurring context of the site. Also, it's clear that the use of tools such as weed-eaters and clippers is necessary during wet seasons to keep the grasses from completely hiding the ruins. But this practice is done is such a haphazard, excessive way that it detracts from the feeling of antiquity and discovery. Finally, I was pleased to see that many of the rooms and areas had not been touched by the excavation. I also liked that the reasons for this were explained in the tour, so that people would get an idea of the newer theories on how to preserve the ancient past. However, the reconstruction of certain walls and areas was a bit of a disappointment. They weren't reconstructed to the point where we could actually see what they looked like, just to the point where we could see the "outline"... I don't know, it seemed like it was just a little heavy-handed to this conservative preservationist. 
We got sprinkled on, my brother got to do a bit of scrambling (up to the mesa top), mom got some cool pictures and a hike right at her level, and I got to check out a site I might never have explored otherwise. What else is family for?  |
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Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.- Barack Obama |
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Route Editor
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