Ancestral Peubloan ruins of Wupatki

Wupatki National Monument

Since I am in the neighborhood zooming around a loop road, I stopped to visit the sites of Wupatki National Monument as well. The entry fee is usually $25, which gets one into Sunset National Monument as well, but today is the last of the year's five fee free days. It is a gamble that there may be crowds. Wupatki National Monument is quite a bit larger than Sunset Crater, but also bans any sort of off trail travel, so I am limited to just a few short trails for my visit. These all go to the well preserved ruins whose protection is the purpose of the monument.

Wukoki (Big House)

Click for map.

Wukoki seems to have been built to be noticed and still stands tall today.

The first ruin along when coming from Sunset Crater is Wukoki. This is off a spur road from the main loop. It is a very different experience from the ruins I have been visiting. Here a staircase has been cut to bring everyone right into the ruin and allowing them to wander the rooms and courtyard area. It's a rather disconcerting thing to watch as some dad stoops not quite far enough to get through a low doorway, scarping those few sand grains off the bottom of a supporting stone. How many times does that happen a day? Eventually it will wear thin. I refrain from touching anything and stay aware enough not to do so accidentally. I can attempt to visit with the least impact even if others do not.

At the entry point, a second level door is visible above the holes that would have supported floor. Thick walls have withstood the test of 600 years, but not all have stayed.

A piece of wall remaining where the rock has taken part with it in a fall.

I still can't help but want to stand inside that tall room and look up.

There's a lot of up to the broken top.

Trail also travels around the bottom of the rock so that one may look at it from all sides from below.

Looking up from the far side. Some unevenness could show where it has been changed or broke.

The fee free day isn't crowded enough to keep me from getting a people free picture of the big house.

Wupatki

Next along the road is Wupatki, which is just behind the visitor center. This is a truly extensive ruin. This city is so large, it even has a convention hall and sports arena! Well, from a certain point of view. The visitor center has booklets to go with the numbers around the area for a self guided tour and signs for a quicker tour. This one is not quite so much a free for all with one area that people may enter while everything else is marked against entry. Artifacts are on display in some of the rooms, although in a variety that makes it obvious they are placed rather than left.

The upper section of the ruin with a path around the edge.

Fewer rooms are in the middle level, which also contains a meeting space.

A closer look at levels in the upper section of building.

The one space to step into is a very odd one that seems not to have been a room at the ground level, but did have floors above. There's also a wall that doesn't quite connect with the rock next to it leaving an opening that isn't very deep.

Grinding stones on display. Some use sandstone and some igneous rocks. They also show different styles.

At the very lowest level is the ball court.

Beside the ball court is an interesting natural phenomenon: a blow hole. It is a small opening to what must be a vast space, although perhaps not one that can be traveled. As the outside pressure falls, it blows outward and as the pressure rises, it blows inward trying to equalize. I try to get a picture of my hat floating for the earth cache, but the breath of the earth is just a little light today and my hat extremely lopsided, so it rises an inch or two, then falls to the side and settles again.

Attempting to get a floating hat photo for geocaching, but that lumpy had won't cooperate.

Then I head back up and around the other side of the buildings. The upper level still seems a crazy extravaganza. They say there were 100 rooms here, but how can they really be sure what all was stacked up here? Especially with the way it wraps around and incorporates the rocks.

A chunk of rock sticks out into living spaces. Note that there was a space below it that seems to have been walled off, at least partly.

More of the effort to surround rocks with walls as I leave.

Citadel and Nalakihu (Lone House)

These two neighboring communities are the briefest walk from the road and from each other. Nalakihu is a row of rooms level with much of the prairie while the Citadel sits atop an igneous outcrop that has resisted weathering to remain high above the plain. It has also resisted the giant sink hole on the far side of it from Nalakihu.

The Citadel with the sun behind it. Nalakihu is along the path before the outcrop.

All of the ruins use a few igneous stones (black) in with the sandstone, but this is the first one where they are obviously arranged decoratively. The limestone (white) does not seem to be done decoratively.

The sign says there is terracing in this hill side beside the sink hole, but I'm having trouble seeing it.

The walls around the edge of the outcrop have the most use of igneous rocks I have seen.

The sink hole beside the outcrop.

Much of the interior is a jumble. The rocks are shaped like building stones and if one looks closely, the place of some walls becomes clear.

Just a little bit of wall left.

Box Canyon and Lomaki (Beautiful House)

The day is getting late, but there is just one more site left to see. Box Canyon is a pair of ruins that sit on either side of a small box canyon. Lomaki is a little further along the trail next to another earth crack. They are over 800 years old.

The box canyon is actually an earth crack produced in the limestone by earthquakes and volcanic activity. It is expected that farming would have been best in these cracks where water can gather.

The three ruins together. Each of these are not as extensive as the others.

The other half of the Box Canyon ruin. Also just a few rooms.

A short dam still exists below Lomaki, built as part of farming the area.

Lomaki is a bit more extensive than the other two.

More than the check dam still exists down in the crack at Lomaki.

I'm back to the car as the sunset becomes official. Just in time. These are only open from sunrise to sunset. I'm glad I stopped for these new and different ruins and the fee free day wasn't too crowded.




©2019 Valerie Norton
Written 20 Dec 2019