Before he died, my father told me about living in NW Colorado in the 1930s when he was a kid. They would go out and explore the sagebrush hills, which had occasional pinyon and juniper trees scattered across the landscape. He told me about finding a traditional tree burial, where natives would place the deceased in a bower up in a big juniper tree. He said it creeped him and his brother out, so they left it alone, but it had remnants of the burial cloth hanging down from it. They couldn't see the body from the ground, but they knew what it was. Now, over ninety years later, I wonder if there's anything left of the unfortunate soul who was 'buried' up in a tree so long ago?
That mud roof reminds me of the kivas in Road Canyon. If you haven't seen them before, they are well worth a visit! From the kivas in the canyon bottom, you can look upward toward the Citadel, though it's not really visible. From the Citadel, looking down, the kivas are in plain view.
A beautful hike and fantastic finds. Hope it remains undisturbed and a forever memory to those that actually lived there. The native people must have been perfectly adapted to their environment, even if the climate a while back was offering more sustenance. Great video!
I would say that some of these people were better builders than others. So my of the structures you find are so well preserved & some have just fallen down.
So cool reminding me of my youth before technology... I have been to ruins few if any white men know of but we only had old timers telling us generally how to get there. I love how you use google earth and gps to find places and then drones and video to illustrate them to others hopefully raising interest in protecting them... All I have are memories.
Went through those in the mid 1980's just before the government went through them and destroyed all the pottery and collected what they put on display. First time seeing it since. Has been many years now. Thanks for sharing your exploration!
I'm jealous you got to see it when it was in better shape, Greg! It definitely looked like it was picked over many times. We did find some larger pieces of pottery (not on the video), but it was all broken or gone. Thanks for watching!
I had a bear crack open a big log about twenty feet from my tent one night, looking for grubs, about one o'clock in the morning. I had been sound asleep, but I was immediately awake and on high alert. I laid there for a few minutes, then decided I had to act now or remain paralyzed and who knows? Get eaten? So I put on my glasses, got out of my sleeping bag, grabbed my headlamp, grabbed my cooking pan and a spoon, then quietly unzipped my tent and crawled outside. It was cold, up in the high SW Colorado Rockies, and the stars were shining to beat the band. I looked over towards where I'd heard the log cracking, but it was too dark to see. All I could see was the silhouettes of the big pines against the amazing starry sky. So I suddenly clicked on my headlamp and started spinning around, hooting and hollering at the top of my lungs, banging and clanging on the metal pan with my spoon, like a demon-possessed, disco dancing Aborigine, which I've heard is a racist term, so please forgive me. After about a minute of this, I stopped and listened. I could hear the echo of my voice coming back down from the high cliffs far above my camp, then nothing but a light, chilly breeze blowing the pines around a little in the cold silence. That bear no doubt went home and told its family about an alien encounter it had up in the mountains, with flashing lights and alarms and everything. Or not.
I wouldn't doubt that many of these places (especially near rivers) were still occupied right up until the Spanish diseases killed them off. Have you ever had any of the wood dated?
Another amazing video! Try to find some blood sacrifice alters they used in the future. They had the same religion at the Aztec and Inca. They were also cannibals, look up Utah study called, "Man Corn".
Love your videos! Heading to Utah this fall. If you don’t mind telling me how do I get to this trailhead and how long was the hike out and back? Did you have a trail map?
They were the ancestors of the modern Hopi and Zuni. If you go to Hopi today, you can walk through their villages, and see modern trash and 500+ year old pottery mixed together. The Hopi still live in those pueblo villages and have lived on those same villages since before the Spanish arrived ca. AD. 1540. Hopi is like going back in time. There are no McDonalds, franchise stores, gas stations, etc. at all. Unlike the neighboring Navajo Reservation.
When I find the unknown I make two reports. One to my NSS and our explorers. Another is addressed to NASA. Which helps the NSS evaluate where I alone was the first of my species to go there. I touch nothing and use my entry footprints to exit within leaving all else unmarked. NASA said explorers like myself by exploration conservation policy offer mankind future Apps: on moons and other planets. I also volunteer my time for US Park Services underground. in 2022 I was invited to party with men and women who used cartography to verify they had explored more than 150 miles under US Government land. Did my reader get that snail mail ?
