More Chimney Rock Adventure

From the lower area we began to climb up along an old trail towards the upper site on Chimney Rock. The climb is strenuous as it is 7,400 feet in altitude! You had to watch you footing all the way up to the top.









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Here is a picture of the Navajo from Taos Pueblo explaining in great detail his interpretation of what we are seeing. This added a great deal to the visit.











This is a look at the Kiva at the top of the ridge. There are a number of rooms surounding the kiva and no one really knows what they are for as the archaeologists did not find any debris from any inhabitation of these rooms.

The masonery of these places is just fabulous. The built all of thier walls of a outer layer of finely laid rock on both sides and an inner layer of fill rock between them. To look at their workmanship and to remember that they only had stone tools, you begin to appreciate their skill. Then to finish it off they plastered over the fine stone work! All of the plaster has weatherd away leaving just the stones.



Here we finally arrived at the pinnacle and have a view of Chimney Rock and Companion Rock!
The view from up there was just magnificent. The guide pointed out a ridge to the south about 90 miles and said that it was Chaco Canyon.

This visit was educational in many ways. We really enjoyed the time and effort we spent in order to see it all.