SOUTHWEST SAFARI CAMP                                                                              

Program Dates: TBA

• 7 days-6 nights starting and ending in Durango, Colorado
• Group Size: Minimum 8 Maximum 16

Departures:

(Archaeoastronomy week)

7 Days/6 Nights: Starting and Ending in Durango, CO
Group Size: Minimum: 8        Maximum: 16

Highlights

Experience a once-in-a-lifetime adventure to seldom seen parts of the archaeological wonders of Chaco Canyon and its outlying ruins. Learn how these ancient people lived. See how they tracked the sky with "archaeoastronomy." Hike to amazing rock art and ruins. In addition to exploring Chaco Canyon itself, we will visit at least 5 Chaco outlier sites outside the Park, that are connected by a series of ancient roads. Most hikes are flat, but two are up to the canyon rim overlooking some of the magnificent great houses and other backcountry sites, with staff to help anytime!

Program Features
¶    Participate in a Unique, Unforgettable, Small Group Setting
¶    Learn through hands-on education, exploration, and discovery of places that most people don't know exist
¶    Hikes from 1 - 4 miles per day RT at elevations of 6,000 to 6,800 feet
¶    Visit Chetro Ketl, Casa Rinconada, Una Vida, Hungo Pavi, and Pueblo Bonito, Pueblo del Arroyo, Penasco Blanco, Tsin Kletsin, Kin Ya'a, Kin Bineola, Kin Klizhin, Pueblo Pentado, and Aztec National Monument
¶    5 nights lodging in deluxe camp 17 miles south of the Park
¶    1 night in the Strater Hotel in Durango, CO
¶    Evening programs led by an archaeologist or guest lecturers
¶    Transportation to/from Durango, CO
¶    All meals cooked by an outstanding camp chef
¶    Archaeoastronomy week visit Equinox and solstice sites Pueblo Bonito, Waterflow,18 Spiral, Shaman, Campground, VC, Casa Rinconada, Wijiji, and more

Chaco Canyon National Historic Park was a major urban center of Ancestral Puebloan culture between 850 AD and 1175 AD, and served as a hub for ceremonial trade and administration for the prehistoric Four Corners area.  Chaco is remarkable for its monumental public and ceremonial buildings, engineering projects, road-building projects, astronomy, artistic achievements, and distinctive architecture - an ancient urban center that once was inhabited as many at 5,000 people, and still amazes and inspires us a thousand years later. Today Chaco is recognized as a World Heritage Site. On Archaeoastronomy week we will alter the schedule to below so we can study the techniques developed by different prehistoric cultures to determine and display significant dates such as the summer or winter solstices and spring and fall equinoxes.  In the American southwest early farming societies sometimes positioned petroglyphs and/or pictographs in locations where unique sunlight and shadow patterns would interact with these images on the above significant dates. Even through we will be a month after the equinox, we will use photos and lectures to demonstrate how these sites work.

DAILY ITINERARY

Day 1 Arrive at the Durango, CO airport by 2pm and drive to a private campsite on Ruby Ranch 17 miles south of Chaco Canyon (3 hours). Arrive at camp, have dinner, orientation.

Day 2 Stop at the park visitors center, visit Una Vida, Hungo Pavi, and Pueblo Bonito (3 miles). We examine artifacts in the visitor's center before exploring two of Chaco's "smaller" great houses, Una Vida and Hungo Pavi. Then it's on to the canyon's centerpiece site, magnificent Pueblo Bonito, an enormous D-shaped complex that stood four stories high and contained 40 kivas and 600 to 800 rooms.

Day 3 Visit Chetro Ketl and Pueblo del Arroyo (1 mile). Then hike to Penasco Blanco (3 miles if we can cross the wash). Along the way, we pause at a pictograph that possibly depicts the Crab Nebula supernova of A.D. 1054 and then explore its many rooms and nearby fascinating water-control features.

Day 4 Visit the great kiva at Casa Rinconada. A hike up the South Mesa brings us to Tsin Kletsin, Navajo for "black wood place" or "charcoal place." See six other Chacoan great houses visible on distant horizons, and we explore a prehistoric dam constructed to capture domestic water for the inhabitants of Tsin Kletsin (3 miles round trip). Visit some of the rock art surrounding the Chaco campground if we have time.

Day 5 To provide a comprehensive view of the Chaco Phenomena, we will visit selected southern outlying pueblo's that were probably politically and economically linked to Chaco.  Most archaeologists believe that a network of interconnected Great House communities shared the socio-political ideology established in Downtown Chaco, and supported the leadership by transporting food and trade goods to Chaco for storage and redistribution as needed throughout the extensive sphere of influence.  All of the outliers had great kivas and similar architectural masonry designs, plus many had roads that may not have connected the community directly to Chaco, but may have provided more of a symbolic connection.  We will visit three sites within the "Chaco core," a zone surrounding Chaco Canyon that contains several great houses established in the late A.D. 1000s, when Chacoan peoples sought additional farmland. We will compare architecture and enjoy a private archaeological experience. Kin Ya'a has remnants of a tower kiva still standing at least two stories high, Kin Bineola, accessed by dirt roads little traveled by tourists, remains one of Chaco's most magnificent sites, with massive sandstone walls rising three stories and rooms and kivas sprawling across several acres. Kin Klizhin (Black House in Navajo) is situated on a hilltop with 25-35 foot towers that provided visual communication with other Chacoan communities.

Day 6 Depart for two other outliers, Pueblo Pentado (near Chaco) and Aztec National Monument (near Farmington on the Animas River). Construction appears to have started at Pueblo Pintado in the 1060s and probably continued through the late 1000s. The site has not been excavated, and few tree-ring dates have been collected. A community of more than thirty small house sites encircles the great house. At least one Chacoan Road is present. The name "Aztec" is actually a misnomer, for the site is associated, not with the Aztec of ancient Mesoamerica, but with the Pueblo culture of the northern Southwest. Occupied from the A.D. 1100s to 1200s, the site was probably originally linked with Chaco Canyon. Masonry walls still stand over 30 feet high, and intact, interconnected rooms invite discovery of original roof beams. In the reconstructed great kiva, we discuss the possibility that Aztec succeeded Chaco as a major community center for the surrounding area. Lastly, we will end up in Durango to spend the night in the Starter Hotel with a final celebratory dinner at a Durango restaurant.

Day 7 Depart for airport after breakfast.  Flights should be scheduled for after 10 am.

Cost:  $1,850.  Price includes all food from dinner on Day 1 to breakfast on Day 7, transportation from/to Durango, Colorado airport, expert staff and guides and camp cook, all camp gear, and park fees. Airfare and personal items not included. Single Supplement is $300 to $600 for camp and motel (call for details).  If you request a roommate, every effort will be made to find you one.  If no roommate is available, you will be charged the single supplement.  

Expert Staff (One of the following)

Virginia Wolf: M.A., Geography, and M.A., Native American Studies and Archaeoastronomy, has taught geography, anthropology, and history classes at Butte Community College in Oroville, CA. Virginia has surveyed the Ute Mountain Tribal Park for Basketmaker-Early Puebloan petroglyph panels, and worked in Chaco Canyon and the Hovenweep National Monument area since 1989 with Ed Wheeler.

Ed Wheeler: M.A. Anthropology, was the Department Chair for the Anthropology Department at Butte Community College for 30 years. Since 1989 Ed has been a co-researcher with Virginia Wolf in Ute Mountain Tribal Park, and co-producer in a commercial video/DVD covering some of the Park's archaeoastronomy sites.  They co-authored an article in Southwestern Lore Journal concerning several solstice sites in Mancos Canyon and did a survey of Basketmaker-Ancestral Pueblo calendar/tower sites extends into Chaco Canyon, Hovenweep and other areas in the Four Corners region.