La Luz trail gives you panoramic views of Albuquerque. As you hike you are treated to ever-changing views of cliffs and trees and wildflowers. The wildflowers are amazing many are unfamiliar.
After hiking up the trail take the tram ride down and have someone pick you up. The walk back to the trail head is hot in the summer and there is no shade.
Santa Fe and Beyond
SAVORING SANTA FE | The Arizona Daily Star ®
New Mexico’s world-famous city is a cultural destination for tourists, and its surrounding areas also offer intriguing attractions for visitors
By Susan C. Hegger
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
ATV Anarchists — enjoying the freedom to destroy
Driving: Making Tracks, Making Enemies By JASON TANZ, NYTimes
Another front has opened in the land-use war. For more than four decades, greenies and gearheads have been battling in parks, courts and state houses across the country over off-roading on public lands. But factions among off-roaders, a group that includes A.T.V. riders, four-by-four enthusiasts, snowmobilers and motorcyclists, are also squaring off.
On one side are self-styled responsible off-roaders, usually members of local clubs that promote following existing land-use rules and minimizing environmental impact. On the other are the renegades, who see such an approach as environmental appeasement. …
Many off-roaders say that the obnoxious behavior had overshadowed efforts by off-road clubs to organize cleanups of popular trails and teach their members techniques — moving fallen trees off the trails instead of driving around them, for instance — to minimize ecological impact. In 1990, Tread Lightly, a program formed by the Forest Service to promote responsible off-roading, became a private nonprofit organization, managed and financed by companies like Ford Motor and Toyota. Today, Tread Lightly leads awareness workshops and restores trails. “Our mission is to empower people to enjoy the outdoors responsibly,” said Lori Davis, the president.
“I think the majority of people who use motorized vehicles believe in the concept and the ethic of Tread Lightly,” Ms. Davis said.
Clearly, she hasn’t been talking to the sport’s more libertarian fans. “I think Tread Lightly is just a veiled form of extreme environmentalism,” said Brad Lark, publisher of extreme4x4.com, a Web site devoted to off-roading. …
A writer on the Web site off-road .com, writing as “Davey the Endangered Desert Tortoise,” expressed a similar view with less subtlety in a February 2002 column: “I don’t Tread Lightly. I trample. From tree-huggers to their totalitarian signage that follows. I trample all in the path of freedom’s future.”
The writer continued, “I don’t tread lightly on treason, and that’s exactly what the Greenies are hereby accused of when they take a stab at our America’s freedom — my family’s freedom — to enjoy the outdoors.”
Photos of Bosque del Apache NWR
Here are 30 pictures (out of 500) from two trips to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. mjh
American Archaeology Magazine
Welcome to American Archaeology
American Archaeology is the only consumer magazine devoted to the excitement and mystery of archaeology in the United States, with additional coverage of Canada and Latin America. In four issues each year, American Archaeology’s colorful features and departments present the research breakthroughs, persistent puzzles, and unique personalities making news in this fascinating field.
This is a nicely done quarterly that covers archaeological issues throughout North America. Current issue features a very interesting article on “geoglyphs” (aka, “intalgio”, large scale drawings in the desert) with great photos. Unfortunately, the article and photos are not online. mjh
A Close Look at Geoglyphs
By Tamara Stewart
Reaching across the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts of Arizona and California, these immense figures are testimonies to the beliefs of an ancient people that persist today. Images of giants, mythic figures, animals, and geometric designs are etched into the desert floor or fashioned by rock alignments. So far, more than 600 of these figures, known as geoglyphs, have been recorded in this area. Some of them are estimated to be thousands of years old.
CANYONS OF THE ANCIENTS NATIONAL MONUMENT
Keeping watch over ancient treasures By Deborah Frazier, Rocky Mountain News
CANYONS OF THE ANCIENTS NATIONAL MONUMENT – Dan Corcoran’s eyes and ears help protect this 164,000-acre archeological preserve for future generations.
The area around Sand Canyon Pueblo, with its 420 rooms, 100 kivas and 14 towers, is Corcoran’s territory. The pueblo was excavated in the 1990s and most of it was reburied for protection.
“There are still lots of depressions where the kivas and rooms are,” said Corcoran, who also volunteers at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center. “You get the feeling of being in a small village.”
He’s one of dozens of volunteer site stewards at the monument, located north of Cortez. They are trained to look for and report vandalism, pothunting and other damage. …
By the early 1200s, more than 100,000 Anasazi, now called the ancestral Puebloans, lived in southwestern Colorado. The early Puebloans, related to the present-day Hopi of Arizona and the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico, migrated to the area starting in about A.D. 700. Before they left in the late 1200s, trade routes stretched from South America to the Pacific Northwest. Small dams and elaborate irrigation systems watered fields.
Acoma Cultural Center
Pueblo of Acoma to begin construction on cultural center New Mexico Business Weekly
The 30,000-square-foot facility will be located at the base of the Pueblo of Acoma, which is set atop a 300-foot sandstone mesa an hour west of Albuquerque and 14 miles south of Interstate 40. …
[Acoma] is considered one of the oldest continuously inhabited villages in North America. …
[T]he architectural style will demonstrate more than 1,000 years of Acoma’s history, showing the evolution of Acoma building styles.
Anasazi Turkey
Turkey tracks, The gobblers have been passing through Utah since Anasazi times By Brett Prettyman, The Salt Lake Tribune
[W]hile historians say turkeys were not on the menu of the first Thanksgiving celebration, archaeologists have physical evidence that Meleagris gallopavo merriami was part of the Anasazi diet as far back as 700. No word on side dishes of the time.
”They had them in pens, they used them for food and they used the feathers for ornaments and blankets,” said Ron Rood, Utah’s assistant state archaeologist.
Edge of the Cedars State Park (Utah)
Edge of the Cedars State Park is in Blanding, Utah. It is a small park with Anasazi ruins. The museum is small but very nicely done. This was the first place I ever saw a duck-shaped pot. There is a room full of pots, which you can only view through large windows. Worth a stop if you’re in the area. mjh
This is a good article on Edge of the Cedars:
Window to a Sacred Past By Tom Wharton, The Salt Lake Tribune
IF YOU GO: Edge of the Cedars State Park is located at 600 W. 400 North in Blanding and is open daily, though hours vary depending on the time of year. The day-use fee is $5 per vehicle. For information, call the park at 435-678-2238 or log on to http://www.Utah.com or http://www.canyonlands-utah.com.
Canyons of the Ancients
BLM Colorado – Canyons of the Ancients National Monument
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwestern Colorado contains a huge number of archaeological sites (more than 6000 recorded, up to 100 per square mile in some places) representing the Ancestral Puebloan and other Native American cultures, as well as important historic and environmental resources.
Visitors planning to explore this National Monument should first stop at the Anasazi Heritage Center for orientation and current information.
See also Canyons of the Ancients | Home for a map (PDF).
Snow job
Today’s Weather Fact in abqjournal.com says:
While Downtown Albuquerque averages seven inches of snow per year, Sandia Crest, less than 15 miles away [mjh: but a mile higher], averages about 120 inches.
Frankly, I can’t believe either of those numbers. I’ve almost never seen more than 2 inches at a time in Albuquerque and can’t remember 3 snowfalls in town in one winter in the past 20 years. As for the Crest, there can be great skiing up there, but last year the ski area never opened. If there was close to the purported 10 foot average, it was spread out pretty thin over 4 months. mjh
New Ute Museum in Ignacio, CO
Utes OK architect to design new museum
The new Ute museum is to be constructed across Colorado Highway 172 from the Sky Ute Casino in Ignacio. A 3,000-square-foot building attached to the casino that has served as a bingo parlor, radio station and community hall now houses the museum’s collection of artifacts.
”It was never meant to be a museum,” Brittner said. …
“Thousands of people visit Mesa Verde without ever learning anything about the Utes,” Brittner said. “The Utes were here before the Anasazi, and they’re alive today and making great contributions.”
Developer finds treasure in ruins
Project near Cortez has 19 homes, 210 ancient Indian sites
”Indian Camp Ranch” billed as ”the first archaeological subdivision.”
On the 1,200 high-desert acres just a few miles northwest of Cortez sit 19 high-end homes. The area has one of the highest recorded densities of ancient Indian sites in the country – 210.
The concentration of sites is rivaled only by the subdivision’s neighbor, the 164,000-acre archaeological preserve called Canyons of the Ancients National Monument. …
This settlement, now called the Hanson Pueblo, has a tower, three kivas and some 28 rooms altogether. It likely was home to three families around A.D. 1135, Hanson says. …
If most archaeologists find Hanson less appealing, they can do nothing about it. In this state it is legal for private property owners to do whatever they like with the cultural artifacts found on their land. …
“We’re living in a fool’s paradise. This is freedom’s heaven,” where county officials base decisions on common sense, not politics, he says.
Hanson, who originally asked $232,000 for each of Indian Camp’s 32 lots, each at least 35 acres, never charged a price differential for the cultural resources. Lots now go for about $250,000 each. …
Just down the hill from the Hansons’ house is the Seed Jar Site, thrilling in its gruesome way.
“A raiding party came in and killed everybody. They stayed there long enough to eat them. Twelve dead people,” Hanson says. “There were 9,156 bones they got out of it, not counting the little ones.”
Archaeologist Korri Dee Turner, daughter of Christy Turner, a cannibalism researcher reviled for focusing so much attention on a grisly and hotly disputed topic, reported evidence of witchcraft rituals and trophy-taking.
Cannibalism of the Ancestral Puebloans is an unpopular topic among many contemporary archaeologists and modern Indians. Just about everything Hanson does causes some unease in the conservative community of local archaeologists because of their discipline’s grueling standards and his free-wheeling ways.
Archaeologists churn up ancient tools, figurine near Prescott, AZ
Archaeologists uncovered one of the largest pestles ever found on the Prescott National Forest while excavating a site for the Gray Wolf landfill expansion last week.
A pestle is a long, conical grinding tool with a pointed end that ancient native people used to grind harder items such as nuts and minerals for paint. …
People of the Prescott Culture during the Chino phase, which dates between 1100 A.D. and 1300 A.D., used the site.
After that time, drier sites the Prescott Culture and others inhabited around the Southwest such as the Hohokam, Anasazi and Mogollon experienced widespread abandonment. They left during the “Great Drought of the Southwest.” Tree-ring dating shows the drought occurred between 1276 and 1299.
The Prescott Culture range covered much of western Yavapai County, especially in the Prescott Basin, as far back as 200 A.D. They had a strong Hohokam influence, in that the Hohokam settled the upper Agua Fria watershed around 750 A.D. to 850 A.D.
Archaeologists disagree about whether the Yavapai people are related to the Prescott Culture. Some theorize that the Yavapai came to this area after the Prescott Culture abandoned it.