We had stopped at the Anasazi Heritage and Visitor Center for Valley of the Ancients in June. The increasing heat of summer dissuaded us from visiting sites in the valley and we headed for the mountains. In the cool air of fall seemed like a better time to stop and see one of the sites in this valley: Hovenweep National Monument.
Named by the Ute, Hovenweep means “deserted valley.” And on our drive in we did not see lots of people.
We arrived around 3 pm and were surprised to find the campground nearly full. We found a great site but some later arrivals were stuck with a trailer on sites that were quite small.
With the sun shining we thought we would walk to the visitor center. We had grabbed our small pack but left our hiking sticks in the van. By the time we reached the visitor center we wish we had not forgotten them. This remote park wanted to get as many people out on their trails so they had a bin of walking sticks available to borrow.
Now that each of had a sturdy walking stick we headed out for the 2 mile hike around rim. Again we saw a number of dwelling in and an on the cliffs.
We reached the trail back to the campground before returning to the visitor center and could hear dinner calling us.
We returned the walking sticks the next morning and talked with the ranger about other hikes and Chaco Canyon. He warned us that a section of the road in to Chaco was poorly maintained. He said ownership of the road was disputed and it rarely was maintained. We have traveled a number poorly maintained roads so we figured we could handle it.
We did discover the Ranger was nomad like us. The day we spoke was his last day at Hovenweep. His car was packed with all of his belongings and he was headed to his next posting. Like us he was headed to New Mexico.