Rain was never far away today. It started sprinkling as we left camp and headed
up the mountain to the Visitor Center and seemed to follow us throughout
the day. It never rained hard, but every time the sky would begin to
clear, it was only a short time before the rains started again.
We started the morning by buying our tickets to tour the Cliff Palace ruins at the Visitor Center and then continued south on the park road to the Far View Sites Complex. This seems to be little visited area that included 3 major ruins and a reservoir (See image). The amazing thing about the reservoir was that it was fed by ditches that stretched all the way back to maize fields near the current Visitor Center. We could use some of the rock work they used to build the reservoir walls in our back yard.
The Far View House and Pipe Shrine House were right near the parking area. The Far View House was fairly large and seemed to have a large number of rooms. The Pipe Shrine House was much smaller and very close by. As we finished shooting the Pipe Shrine House, the rains returned and we hustled back to the car.
After the rain stopped, we checked out Mummy Lake (the reservoir). Then, we went to Coyote Village, which was the most interesting of the 3 main ruins. It had three large kivas; one with unusual bleachers or bunk beds along the walls. It was interesting how some of the rooms had tunnels to other sections of ruins or a kiva, while others seemed completely cut off from the others. Coyote Village even had a small round tower. It was great having the area to ourselves most of the time.
From the Far View sites, we drove the Mesa Top Loop Road. The road drives along
the edge of the mesa that separates Navajo Canyon from Cliff Canyon. The
highpoints of the road started on the south end of the loop near the Square Tower House. Although the NPS was working on renovating a
portion of the site, the Square Tower section was left undisturbed and was
pretty amazing. Then the rains hit again. The Sun Point View provided
views of at least four major ruins, including Cliff Palace and Sun Temple.
One was even a double-decker ruins (See image) with a second ruins on a ledge over the
original ruins.
After sharing complaint stories with another Allegro owner we met at a previous stop, we realized we'd better get going to make our 3:00 tour at Cliff Palace. We ate our lunch in the car and then walked down to meet the tour leader. After hearing the warnings from the tour guide, we decided to skip Cliff Palace and spend the afternoon at Spruce Tree House ruins.
Although it was raining when we arrived in the parking lot, it soon stopped and we walked down to the ruins. Fortunately, it wasn't very crowded and we were free to shoot pretty much anything we wanted. We even got a few good minutes of sunshine a couple times while we were there.
Previous Day
Return to Trip Page