In September we camped at Hovenweep National Monument. Never heard of it? Don’t feel bad. Most people haven’t, including many of our Southwestern friends. Although it’s been a national monument since 1923, less than one million folks have ever visited.
Hovenweep (Paiute/Ute for deserted valley) straddles the Utah/Colorado border in the Four Corners area, less than 30 miles from Mesa Verde as the crow flies. While much less celebrated than its neighbor, Hovenweep is one of the most fascinating of Ancestral Puebloan ruins. Above pinon dotted canyons, finely masoned towers up to 20 feet high are posted like sentinels watching over the vast mesaland landscape. Those which remain standing are architectural wonders, some perfectly square, some round, some D-shaped. The masonry is exceptional, the stones fitting together with remarkable precision. Many perch directly on the knife edge of sheer canyon walls and seem almost to have grown organically from the mesas.
It’s quiet, definitely off the beaten southwestern loop—a pleasant secret of spectacular ruins and Great Sage Plain.
On our second afternoon we had a desert downpour that rocked our little car and tent. When it stopped around 4:30 pm, we set off for two little-visited ruins, Horseshoe and Hackberry, about six miles north of camp. Down a rutted dirt road we reached the trailhead and skirted across a mesa top toward the ancient towers. Along the trail we watched and were watched back by three gray foxes. When we first spotted them I couldn’t believe they weren’t coyotes. But the large ears, bushy tails and pointy snouts were unmistakable.
Late Afternoon—Hovenweep
But the best came last. On the trip back we looked south across a desert panorama blown clean by rain. Through the fresh washed air we watched as the storm moved off toward Arizona and Utah. From our upland vantage point looking south, we named the mountains along the horizon—San Juans, Ute Mountain, Shiprock, Chuskas, Abajos, La Salles. And there, 85 miles southwest, like a tiny, distant cityscape between the Chuskas and the Abajos, stood Monument Valley, etched against the darkening sky.
That night we slept peacefully beneath the star-filled bowl of desert night. Far away, coyotes howled in the wilderness.
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