Tall walls, dusty gusts and painstaking workmanship — replicating that of Pueblo masons a thousand years ago — are among the memories 10 students from Southwest Open School brought back from Chaco Culture National Historical Park recently.
The “Following the Ancients” class went to the Anasazi Heritage Center, Mesa Verde National Park and Aztec Ruins, then took the big plunge and spent three days and three nights in Chaco Canyon.
Spending most of a week at Chaco takes some planning and preparation. Instructor Patti Ledford went to the canyon several weeks ago and met with Chief of Interpretation Christine Czazasty to plan the trip and scout the resources. That enabled her to include a service project for the park, as well as to arrange opportunities for the students to meet with the crew of workmen who keep the ancient walls standing, archeologist Roger Moore and chief ranger Don Whyte (who is from Towaoc).
In the event, Ledford, Sandi Valencia and Jeff Sand and the students journeyed to Chaco Canyon on May 7, meeting former Chaco superintendent (and former SWOS board member) Tom Vaughan there. And they walked!
Up above the campground on a trail along the cliffs, where they contemplated Fajada Butte and the way the ancestral Puebloans studied the skies and incorporated their astronomical knowledge into their lives and their buildings.
Up a steep cleft in the cliff to the clifftop overlooking Pueblo Bonito, where they contemplated the 600-room, 1,000-year-old structure below them in a silence so profound that other hikers stopped and joined them.
Through and around the Chetro Ketl site, informed by Moore.
Through and around the inner rooms of Pueblo Bonito, guided by ranger Paula Sprenger.
Along the cliff faces at Chetro Ketl and in the campground, seeing the inscriptions pecked into the rocks by Pueblo, Navajo and Hispanic residents of the canyon in the past.
As with all SWOS learning trips, the students helped plan the trip and took turns cooking and doing the other chores around the campsite. Gusts of wind through the campsite ensured that everyone ate their share of Chaco’s fine sand, but nobody’s tent blew away!
Service learning is also part of the SWOS program and the students and staff worked a half—day under Whyte’s supervision, refurbishing a wooden guardrail along the sidewalk at the Pueblo Bonito/Chetro Ketl parking lot.
Sun, sand, flowers, coyote barks, raven caws, beautifully crafted stone walls ... all part of a memorable Chaco experience!
Readers who wish to support the expeditionary learning program used at SWOS can make tax-deductible contributions to the Minds in Motion fund, an endowment fund managed by the Forward Foundation of Cortez. Proceeds from the fund are used to underwrite travel like this trip. Donations can be mailed to SWOS at P.O. Box DD, Cortez, CO 81321.
