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July 2000

Arizona - Grand Canyon and surrounding area

David Aaronson
2005-09-24 18:58:21

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/>We took the tram back to the village and left the national park after that. There are quite a few good vantage points along the road to Cameron, Arizona as well as some truly difficult descending trails that we intend to come back and pursue at a later date.

Wupatki National Monument is just a little southeast of the Grand Canyon and contains the remains of several dozen Anasazi settlements. Scattered across several ridges and amongst juniper and pinon trees several of the larger ruins can be visited. This is the largest, Wupatki, located behind the visitor center. If you look carefully you'll notice that amongst the bricks is an outcropping of natural red sandstone which was used as the foundation of this building. Several families lived here in suprisingly small quarters.

Also nearby are the remains of a ball court where games similar to those played by the Mayans were held. The exact purpose of the games is not known, though unlike the Mayans the Anasazi did not kill the losers.

At the time that Wupatki was thriving (1200-1400 AD) and the settlements in Canyon de Chelley were thriving, nearby Sunset Crater was volcanically active. In fact significant eruptions in the 12th century led to fertile soil north and east of the volcano which in turn led to all the Anasazi settlements in the area. Today the main crater is surrounded by a thousand foot high cinder cone and there has been no recorded activity in recent centuries. Sunset Crater National Monument is adjacent to Wupatki.

There is a rather interesting trail on one side of the cinder cone, especially if one isn't very accustomed to volcanic landscape (and we aren't). This chaotic jumble is an ancient lava flow. The ground around the volcano is finely ground black rock with a sand-like consistency.

The name of Sunset Crater came from the reddish hue that the cone takes on during particularly good sunsets. This, according to a local photographer who showed up, was not a particularly good sunset although it was certainly still impressive.