BY WENDY UNDERHILL

May/June 2008 - Way beyond the beaten path the enlightened tourist

Ready for some adventure? Forget Mesa Verde. Embark on a tour that will have you following in the footsteps of the ancients (sensible shoes recommended).

I've been to Mesa Verde National Park several times, and have never ceased to be amazed. Home to the original dwellings of ancestral Puebloan farmers (they used to be called Anasazi), it's a cultural treasure—and a darn popular one. Thousands of people crowd through its main gates on any given summer's day to view the ruins.

Spectacular though it is, those hordes have caused me to shy away at times. Sure, it’s a must-see. But if you have seen it, the southwest corner of Colorado offers many places to learn about ancestral Puebloans. While none of the other sites can top Mesa Verde for grandeur, the alternatives offer more adventure--and fewer fellow visitors.

If you have just one day:
Start at the Anasazi Heritage Center (this museum hasn't changed its name) just outside Dolores. It's an excellent place to get your bearings. See the exhibits, of course, but then spend some time talking with the staff about how best to investigate one of the nation's newest national monuments, Canyons of the Ancients. It’s a hodgepodge of lands covering vast areas, and on it are a number of small, excavated sites that have been minimally developed for visitors, thus presenting a treasure hunt of sorts. The first, the Escalante and Dominguez Pueblos, are right at the Heritage Center’s doorstep. If you venture beyond, be sure the gas tank is full and you've got water and a picnic in the car just in case you get lost. Which I did. Visit www.co.blm.gov/ahc for more info.

The highlight of this one-day outing may be Lowry Pueblo, an impressive 40-room, above-ground dwelling that hails from AD 1060. As with everything in Canyons of the Ancients, it takes a sharp eye and a good map to find; once there, it's fun to play hide and seek among the rooms and kivas—carefully, of course.

The more established Hovenweep National Monument offers easier access to developed sites, and it's right there amidst the Canyons of the Ancients. When we visited Hovenweep to see its towers, houses, and rock art, we were two of just four visitors that day. Even in the off-season, Mesa Verde could never have a day that slow.

If you have two days:
Spend the first day with the staff at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center (crowcanyon.org), just west of Cortez. June through August, on Wednesdays and Thursdays, the center offers day-long introductions to archaeology in action, including visits to a working archaeological lab and a current excavation site (at the moment, it’s Goodman Point Pueblo in Hovenweep) where you can get your hands dirty, just as the field staff does. The beauty of this plan: by learning with experts first, you'll have the know-how to make your own explorations the next day all the more meaningful—and more fun.

If you're really gung ho, sign on for a Crow Canyon week-long field school for families, adults or teens. If that's still not enough, plan a vacation with Crow Canyon archaeologists as they explore other sites in the southwest or abroad.

 

If you have three days:
Contact the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe (970-565-9653 or utemountainute.com) and ask for a tour of the cliff dwellings and other ancestral Puebloan sites in the Ute Mountain Tribal Park. To see them up close, expect to spend a full day, and be prepared to hike several miles down and across a canyon, climbing ladders to reach the cliff houses.

It’s worth the effort. Instead of cramming into the Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde with 100 other people, you and a dozen or fewer others will see three equally intriguing, albeit smaller, cliff houses. You'll have all day to do it, and a story to tell about the adventure later.

Plus, you'll have the benefit of a Ute guide. In my case, that was Jacob Vance. We met up at the Ute Mountain Ute Visitors Center at the junction of Highways 160 and 491 and piled into his van. We then drove for close to an hour across the Tribal Park, an expanse of mesas and canyons larger than Mesa Verde National Park, and more secluded, too. While we were returning, Vance stopped for a chat with the Tribal Park superintendent, who was driving the opposite way. Vance told him about the only other truck we'd seen all day, a blue one that he didn't recognize; he knew all the vehicles belonging to tribal members. The superintendent said he'd check on it and escort the vehicle out if necessary. Point taken: this was not our land.

Vance didn't talk much at first, but by the end of the afternoon, we had learned quite a lot--not just about the ancestral Puebloans but also about the Ute Mountain Tribe. We saw how Puebloans grew corn, squash and beans centuries ago by using check dams and irrigation. We learned that they knew how to use passive solar energy by only building pueblos that faced south; that 20 percent of surface sites are estimated to have been uncovered so far; that wild horses run in the canyon bottoms, dense with pinon, Mormon tea and sagebrush; and that it's fun to visit the “middens,” or trash heaps, and pick up (and replace) potsherds.

As for modern life, we learned that the Ute Mountain Utes are not to be confused with the Southern Utes, who have their own reservation 40 miles eastward. And we learned that Vance doesn't claim any more kinship to the residents of these ancestral pueblos than I do; the Utes came to the area much later, and occupied all of Colorado, eastern Utah and northern New Mexico when the Spanish arrived.

Providing archaeological tours is just one of the businesses the Ute Mountain Utes run. Another, and much larger, is the Ute Mountain Casino set prominently on highway 491. If you'd like to have a taste of modern Indian life, you could stop there, but I suggest instead taking a detour through the Ute town of Towaoc, which is close to the highway but well off the tourist track. Stop at the trailer that sells Indian fry bread; it's deliciously indulgent, in all its greasy splendor.

Wherever and however you decide to explore ancestral Pueblo life, ponder the big question: why did the ancestral Puebloans leave the area? Their time on the mesas and canyons was abruptly cut short around 1300 AD. Theories abound, so ask everyone you encounter what their view is; it's sure to be the start of a meaningful conversation.

Where to stay and what to eat.
Make your home base in Dolores, 10 miles north of Cortez. You'll see the “Galloping Goose No. 5,” a hybrid vehicle from the 1930s: it's a conglomeration of a school bus body, a GMC gasoline truck engine, and wheels to run on rails. This thing plied the railroad between Durango and Ridgway until 1951. Now, it struts its stuff a couple of times a year, but otherwise sits out front of a replica of the original depot in Dolores. Call for details at 970-882-7082.

Dolores has two good food choices: Joey's, a real restaurant with a real chef (Joey Bevilaque) who likes to serve real food grown locally, and the Down to Earth Cafe & Juice Bar—fewer selections, but basic and reasonably priced.

For lodging, try the Rio Grande Southern Hotel, built in 1893. If it was good enough for Teddy Roosevelt and Zane Grey, it's good enough for me, even though it's not a luxury facility.

For cushier digs, try the Lebanon School House Bed and Breakfast just on the outskirts of Dolores (lebanonschoolhouse.com).

Before you head out on your trip, stock up on car munchies at the Abundant Life Natural Foods Store in Cortez, and make a detour to the hamlet of Dove Creek, up the road 20 miles, where you can buy Anasazi beans at the Adobe Milling Co. The maroon- and white-speckled Anasazi beans are said to be genetic descendants of beans found in local excavations, and make a fine side dish or stew. If you've still got time, visit the Sutcliffe and Guy Drew vineyards located near Cortez, and consider yourself privileged to have made merry in the southwest in a way that the hordes simply haven't.

Wendy Underhill, a writer, parent and community do-gooder, has set a goal for 2008: "Have more fun." Traveling the byways of Colorado is one of the big ways she's fulfilling that goal.

 

 

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