Travel

CRACK-IN-ROCK Time Traveling to an Obscure 1,000-year-old Indian Ruin Proves an Eerie Experience

As I begin this account, I imagine myself touching down to Earth, brushing ancient desert dust from my shoulders, and cracking open my H.G. Wells time machine. In less than 36 hours, I have traveled back in time more than 1,000 years. I have walked among the ancients and have seen their mysterious rock messages. I have stood in their homes and have touched their tools and pottery.

Taylor Photographs by David H. Smith

I accomplished this by hiking to Crack-in-Rock Ruin within Arizona's Wupatki National Monument and entering the eerie realm of the prehistoric Anasazi. No matter how avid a hiker and Indian-ruins aficionado you may be, it's likely you've never heard of the Crack-in-Rock hike. It is relatively obscure on the list of Southwestern desert treks and usually not included in noteworthy photography collections. That's just the way the National Park Service would like to keep it.

The Wupatki area, 45 miles north of Flagstaff on U.S. Route 89, is rich with the life signs and dwelling ruins of ancient Indian tribes, primarily the Anasazi and Sinagua.To preserve these ancient treasures, the NPS restricts unescorted public access to Crack-in-Rock and other ruins within the area of the Wupatki National Monument. The region is heavily patrolled, and the ruins, mainly located on three mesas, are protected by electronic sensing devices.

(ABOVE) Looking north from Middle Mesa, one of three mesas in Wupatki National Monument where the ruins are concentrated, hikers can see some of the rooms on Crack-in-Rock's western end. Within the monument are some 800 ruins, remnants of the Anasazi and Sinaguan peoples who tended farms in the fertile soil there after the volcanic eruption that formed Sunset Crater. (RIGHT) Centuries ago inhabitants of Crack-inRock etched a diverse panel of petroglyph "pictures" into the large desert-varnished rock above one of the pueblo's rooms.

There is a reason for the strict security. Without these measures, archeologists and park managers are certain the area would be stripped of its precious prehistoric artifacts by looters.

Wupatki has a special place among ruins of the Southwest. Tom Ferrell, an NPS guide who led our group's hike, explained Wupatki is operated as an “outdoor laboratory” for scientists. All that is found along the Wupatki Trail by archeologists and other scientists is left at the site so those who follow also can gather information on the basis of how and where artifacts are situated.

For example, the fact that a black-onwhite shard is found next to a particular type of spearpoint may indicate to a scientist that two different tribes coexisted in the area. This may have further implications regarding tribal migrations and interdependency.

Because of the area's fragility and importance, the NPS allows only eight escorted public overnight hikes a year to Crack-in-Rock, one on each weekend in April and October. Hikers are selected on the basis of prior application and the luck of a lottery draw. Groups of 20 to 25 are accompanied by two guides.

I arrived at the Wupatki National Monument Visitors Center at 9:00 A.M. on a Saturday in October and found 16 others waiting to begin the hike. At 9:30, we drove from the center a few miles through the high desert to Hole-in-Rock, where we parked our vehicles, checked our packs, and prepared for the seven-mile trek.

It was at Hole-in-Rock that we left present-day behind and walked into prehistory. We were surrounded by the leavings of ancient Southwestern peoples and engulfed by geologic formations that are today's witnesses to the phenomena that molded the Colorado Plateau hundreds of millions of years ago.

WHEN YOU GO

Our group included hikers from as far away as Seattle, Washington, and as near as Flagstaff and Gilbert. While listening to a “backcountry primer” by Ferrell about not disturbing artifacts, several of us peered down at the ground beyond our feet and instantly spotted pottery shards and utility stones, the edges of which had been chipped and fluted to form scraping tools.

This was only the beginning. Hiking along the black lava beds and through Middle, Horseshoe, and Crack-in-Rock mesas ruins, we saw many shards, arrowheads, and tool remnants.

At one point along the trail, hiker Larry Miller of Tempe called to Ferrell and held out his hand. In his palm he held an arrowhead approximately 1 3/4 inches long and nearly perfect in its formation. Miller, an amateur photographer and experienced hiker, also found a strange and beautiful geode: a small rock that had been hollowed out and then filled with sparkling, diamondlike crystal. Imbedded in the crystal was a perfect spiral shell, demonstrating for all of us that the ground on which we hiked was undersea millions of years ago.

arrowhead approximately 1 3/4 inches long and nearly perfect in its formation. Miller, an amateur photographer and experienced hiker, also found a strange and beautiful geode: a small rock that had been hollowed out and then filled with sparkling, diamondlike crystal. Imbedded in the crystal was a perfect spiral shell, demonstrating for all of us that the ground on which we hiked was undersea millions of years ago.

The specific significance of the treasures along the Wupatki Trail is that they are the vital signs of the ancient Anasazi and evidence of the earthshaking geologic events that drew the mysterious Southwestern tribe to the Wupatki area sometime after A.D. 1064.

It is believed that humans first visited the Wupatki area as much as 5,000 years ago but that these were nomadic hunting and foraging tribes. Rather than settle in the area, these tribes, many from the Great Plains region, merely passed through in their search for food.

Don't wear tennis shoes; the terrain is craggy at best and quite tiring. Hiking through lava washes is worse than through sand; also the climbs to the mesa tops are demanding, especially while supporting a heavy pack. Daytime temperatures can reach the high 80s in April and October, so bring ample water. It is available at the campsite, but the park service would rather reserve this supply for emergencies. Take enough food for yourself.

For more information and to apply for a spot on one of these hikes, contact Wupatki National Monument, HC 33, Box 444A, Flagstaff, AZ 86004; (602) 556-7040.

Among human events, the “revolution” that is believed to have truly sparked the civilization of mankind was agriculture. It forced people to settle, plan as a community, and engineer methods and tools to ensure a constant source of food.

They built dwellings near what now are Sunset Crater Volcano and Walnut Canyon national monuments. Indications are that this tribe alone inhabited the area north of Flagstaff until a cataclysmic event occurred in A.D. 1064. Sunset Crater burst out of the ground as a fierce volcano and drove the Sinagua away. Returning years later, they discovered that the land near Sunset Crater, now cov-ered with a cindery mulch able to hold water, was more suitable for farming. The Sinagua resettled. A band of friends, also agriculturists, came along, branched off, and settled to the northeast. They were the Anasazi.

That is the name the Navajo gave this tribe when they came upon their ruins hundreds of years later. It means “ancient enemy” and denotes the tension that has long existed between Pueblo descendants of the Anasazi and tribes such as the Navajo and the Apache.

Known for their masonry skills, the Anasazi who settled in Wupatki built red sandstone dwellings that accommodated several families and, in some cases, hun-dreds of people. Community members lived, worshipped, and socialized together in multistory apartment buildings.

We visited the Anasazi ruins on the three Wupatki mesas and found masonry walls still intact after nearly 10 centuries, spacious rooms that served as living and storage areas, and community rooms, known today by the Hopi word "kiva." One of Wupatki's most notable kivas is on Crack-in-Rock, the last mesa on the Wupatki Trail. It contains a "solar wall" with three portholes, each of which looks east over the Painted Desert and the Little Colorado River Valley. This wall apparently was used by the Anasazi as a "calendar" for religious and agricultural purposes. One of the holes marks the summer solstice. Another appears to signal the same period during which the Hopi now hold their secret Bean Ceremony. The purpose of the third is not known, although archeologists speculate it may have lunar or astronom-ical significance. The entry to the kiva and the entire Crack-in-Rock dwelling literally is through a crack in the rock that forms the mesa wall. The Anasazi ducked inside the crack, climbed upward through a shaft, and stepped out onto their protected dwelling area. Crack-in-Rock and other ruin sites along the Wupatki Trail are marked by hundreds of petroglyphs: ancient tribal "pictures" created by scratching or chis-eling in desert-varnished rock.

There are many theories about what the Wupatki and other Indian petroglyphs actually are, ranging from ancient graffiti to a complex communications system for neighboring tribes. The theory accepted most by scientists, however, is that the rock art was used in ceremonies to help bring rain and other favorable natural forces, and to record significant tribal occurrences. The Wupatki petroglyphs are eerie etchings of misshapen people with huge trunks, humpbacks, and horns. Some are intricate patterns similar to those used on Anasazi pottery. Others are grotesque lizards, birds, dogs, and other creatures. On one mesa is a petroglyph wall with an etching of two copulating coyotes. Another depicts people with oversize hands and feet who appear to be herding turkeys. A recurrent petroglyph character is one who has come to be known as the spirit Kokopelli. He has a humpback and carries or plays a flute. Sometimes he is on his back and, in other petro-glyphs, he is upright, merry, and beck-oning others to follow. Speculation is that his hump is actually a bag in which he carries "treats" and goods to seduce young maidens. Many of these images are about 1,000

CRACK-IN-ROCK

years old. It is unsettling to imagine the ancient gatherings and ceremonies that produced them. In fact, standing among the ruins is unsettling. In these places, women met to cut their hair for thread they made into ornaments for the men's braids. Babies were born and fastened for months to cradleboards so the backs of their heads would grow fashionably flat. Turquoise jewelry was designed and traded for colorful trinkets and feathers from friendly tribes. "Mormon tea" was brewed and maize was pounded into meal. Life was tough but generally predictable. The Anasazi, short in stature and passive in nature, organized themselves into well-led, peaceful, and supportive communities. If you are moved by the signs of "those who came before," you will be thrilled at every step along the Wupatki Trail. But it's important to appreciate the degree of difficulty of the trek. When you call to apply you will be told by park service staff that the hike is rated as "easy." It's only seven miles, after all, and the high-desert altitude, which is approximately 4,800 feet at the visitors center, varies little more than 300 to 400 feet the entire distance.

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CRACK-IN-ROCK

But and this is a huge “but” it will not be easy if you are a novice. The easy designation is valid only to hikers who are experienced on trails such as those up and down the Grand Canyon. The pace is slow to accommodate beginners. Even at that, some of the novices in our group were so tired and sore the next day, the guides decided to radio for vehicles to drive them out. One was a woman from Seattle who had minimal hiking experience. By morning, her ankles were black and bruised. Another was a man from Williams who could barely straighten his back from a stooped position. Another was a man from Phoenix who, wearing tennis shoes, injured a foot tendon. Experienced hikers also should be forewarned. Because the hike is difficult for beginners, park service guides travel at what seems like a snail's pace. Just when you're back on the trail and rolling again, you have to stop, unload your pack for the zillionth time, and wait while the beginners catch their breath. As the experienced hiker knows, it is just as agonizing to stop every few minutes and wait as it is for the novice to go on. Our hike took more than eight hours less than a mile an hour. We arrived at Crack-in-Rock just as the sun was sinking. In other words, on this hike be prepared for difficulty no matter your experience level. It will be a strain if you haven't hiked much, and it will be a strain of a different nature if you have. But that's okay. Wells never said time travel was easy.

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