Guest Post by Sarah: Another Perspective on the Dunes

Early morning sunrise on the prairie greeted us after driving through the night. Some of us had slept more than others.  David slept on the bed in the back (tied down). [The Bed in the back is really the shelf in the back that Dad built out of an old, very midcentury, table that he found in the barn (under Mom’s command to make it of course).  Dad is a ‘find what you have around, what can you make with that?’ inventive builder.  The two other types, according to PaPa, are the careful planner, and the Taj Mahal.]  Mom and Dad took turns napping/reclining their seats into mine (I am now the go between).  And all slept well in their time allotted, except me and Miriam.  In the new seating arrangement I am next to her, which is normally not a problem.  She is a well behaved little goose as the sun shines and she watches Thomas while sleeping (necessary background noise) but as the moon rises she begins to think of nursing to sleep, and if she doesn’t get her mother in constant attention at her bedside, waiting for her to wake, I get to awaken and help sing songs to a distressed baby until she calms and I can sleep again.

Even with driving through the night we did not arrive at our first destination in two seconds, so there was plenty of time to marvel at what passed the window.  One of the things to marvel at, before we reached the mountains, was pronghorns.  David and Leah spotted many passing in the bush, but, turn my head as fast as I might, they were always gone by the time I looked over.  Until I saw some grazing on wild sunflowers.

 

There are whole new sets of wild flowers here on the prairie.

As we approached the mountains there were more wild flowers than grass, and while the majority of land remained flat, there rang frequent exclamations of “look at the mountain.”  We climbed up through the pass, and the trees changed to one type.  They are the only type that can grow at this altitude, Dad explains, a break from using his knowledge base to instruct us on MI history/politics and geology of wherever we happen to be.

Finally we have arrived at the dunes.  They look very out of place in the landscape rising white and grainy in the planes of a valley surrounded by mountains.  7:00am there are few people there, but the mosquitoes will not be discouraged by the early hour or slim pickings. --The mosquitoes her are tan, as opposed to the little fray one found in VA, or big black ones from Kansas who match the oklahoma fly in size (the Oklahoma fly is an animal that boarded the Richman express in OK and bussed around for a while, much to the displeasure of everyone, and Dad thinks he ultimately killed it) -- Luckily Mom had new bug spray, gotten at Laura Ingalls Wilder’s little house on the prairie replica gift shop, to replace the malfunctioning bottle.

We ate breakfast in jackets at a picnic spot, granola and milk, before heading down to the dunes.  Breakfast was past merrily with the fine casting of bugs on the front bumper, as observed by the children “can we take a picture, lets take a picture.” Mom refused that request.

David ran ahead and read safety regulations.  “They say your should wear tennis shoes.”  So we all ran back to the can and put on tennis shoes.  Then, prepared to protect our feet from the “up to 140°” sand temperatures, we walked down.  Only to discover that in order to reach the dunes, one had to first ford a shallow sandy river.  Off went the shoes not on our feet for more than 30 seconds, off went the socks carrying with them all hope of being sand free, and in went our feet into the water.  The sand on the other side was fairly pleasant, and after observing my own and others troubles putting on shoes, plus the locals lack of hiking boots, I decided to go bare.

That is the end of the journal entry.

Me and David later climbed up to the top of what looked like the highest dune, with Dad and Anna along, but after reaching it, the next dune was taller.  So David and I decided to go up that.  We took one bottle of water that threatened to run out and set off in just our soxs.  At this point in the day the sand was too hot for bare feet, so we took the idea of a jewish girls school who wrote hebrew lettering on the dune sides signed off in english, and walked just in the socks.  It is much easier than shoes, and protects feet from the heat.  At the top of that peak we looked out over the sand and saw taller ones still.  They had looked like a pile but were a sea.  After digging cool little holes to lie down in and rest a bit, we headed back down.

Taking the Scenic Route to Roadway Inn

Taking the scenic route is sometimes a euphemism for getting lost.  In this modern age of GPS such getting lost may have its origins in human or machine error, as it was for us.  I may expand on this blog post to explain just how we came to perambulate in a great many ways through the magnificent wilderness of southern Utah, circling and re-circling the splendid Colorado plateau.  I may even, if I dare, explain how we almost got the van stuck in a very large road tunnel / culvert in the White Canyon.  Perhaps then the Roadway Inn stay could be understood for all its complexity and symbolic importance.  But over some things perhaps it is best to draw a veil of partial forgetfulness.  By the time we were done driving this wilderness, only the Grand Canyon itself retained capacity to draw forth wonder. And our travels and travails arguably helped make that grand and splendid monument to erosion, water, and soft sedimentary deposits more comprehensible by building us up to it in stages.

Mesa Verde

Mesa Verde means green mesa – green flat topped mountain.  It is a remarkable fortress-land of flat topped plains isolated by erosion.  The cradle of a budding civilization cropped and excited by 20 year drought, deforestation, and resource depletion, it is not alone.  The Pueblo-dwelling descendants of those who built Mesa-Verde’s cliff and cliff-top houses claim that the presence of their ancestors remains.  And although the story of their discovery is that cowboys searching for  lost cows stumbled upon the ancient cliff-villages, the truth is more complex – the landmarks were pointed out to them by the native American who traveled with them.

The climb to the national park was rendered even more exciting by our van’s erratic behavior on the way to the park gates.  Overheated from more than 24 hours of nearly constant driving, the van stalled out several times on the road from Pagosa Springs to Piedra.  We limped into Piedra to buy gas (which seemed to help for a time) by accelerating for a half minute while the engine ran, and then coasting down the slope for another half mile after it had stalled.  A slow way to travel, but faster than the speed of a bicyclist we passed.  Fortunately the cooler air of this mountain fastness helped the engine regain its vitality.

The traverse feels like one is entering a walled kingdom.  Massive ramparts of stone, sheer walls of sandstone cap-rock.  Vast vistas of the surrounding country in the evening air.  Precipitous drops.

And then a gradual descent to the campground.  A green valley swept by wind, with half-tame deer ambling through the low forest and the loops of a pleasant campground.  Gambrel oak, pinion pine, juniper, and other trees.  Our first campfire.  First night in our new tent.  First night of cooking on camp-table-top. 

Mesa Verde was inhabited by the ancestral Puebloans from about 600 AD to 1300 AD.  They began with houses dug into the soil on the top of the mesa – pit houses roofed with wood, mud, and other materials.  Corn, beans, and squash grew on the mesa, and extensive and intensive agriculture made effective use of the limited moisture of the mesa to build the sustenance for a civilization.  Dogs and turkeys were the domesticated animals.  

The civilization developed progressively larger buildings, and the residents became skilled stone-masons.  Eventually at least some of the residents shifted from mesa-top living to the cliff-dwellings that have made them famous.  Rooms were plastered and painted, and stone walls were built several stories high. 

Our guide for the tour of Long House helped keep things fun, and was very tolerant of Miriam's great desire to explore the ancient town by walking barefoot through its plazas, and playing in its dust.  Miriam would have liked to do more climbing on the walls, and to have entered more spaces and rooms. 

One thing that struck me was her discussion of the varying interpretations put on what the ancients left by different interpreters.  Is the loose rock wall of a ledge above the town a reflection of a storage space (archeologists) or was this a place for practicing different building techniques, or even a child's play space (native American visitors to the site). 

Archeologists speculate that the "sun temple" site on mesa top was a temple.  But their evidence is slender.  It looked like a fortress to me.

The ascent from Long House to the mesa was by three ladders.  Miriam was at this point in open rebellion, and nothing short of a sling ride with benefits would suffice to persuade her to allow her mother to haul her up.

Although the mesa was hot, it was beautiful.  As Sarah, David, and I climbed into the underground Kiva room of one cliff village, we could feel the vitality of this civilization cut short by drought, overcrowding, and resource exhaustion.  The smoke of these communal spaces which provided shelter from both heat and cold.

As we drove away into the Colorado and (by mistake) New Mexico lands surrounding the park, the vast cliffs of Mesa Verde followed us for many miles.  Massive ramparts with scattered green, still living with the memories of long ago. 

Sand, sun and water

After descending from the 9000 foot pass, we had breakfast at Sand Dunes National Monument.  Patricia and I were both somewhat tired, but also exhilarated by the scenery.  Breakfast provided ample opportunity to test the new bug spray from Kansas.

The dunes are the most dramatic, fabulous play space.  A magical sand box of steep mountains of sand bounded by a shallow river filled with shifting sand bars that one must cross to reach the dunes.

Miriam and Anna loved the river, and both were very reluctant to leave when it was time to go.  The water at midday had warmed, and both loved plunging themselves into it, reveling in the marvel of the flowing, lovely, and pleasantly shallow water mixed with eroding sand.

Initially we all hiked together up the dunes.  By volunteering to retrieve a run-away sled, I built a connection with a family who had rented one of the dune sleds.  

Eventually it became apparent that Miriam was done hiking up the increasingly hot dunes.  Leah and Patricia stayed on a ridge of sand with Miriam while the rest of us pressed on up the mountain of sand. 

Sometimes I carried Anna.  Sometimes Anna walked.  Sometimes we stopped for a break. 
The view from the top: Water, mountains, and sand dunes.  The soft sand invited flying or sliding down its surfaces, while the succession of higher dunes tempted deeper exploration of this thirty square miles of drifted sand. 

But the sun was hot, and our water bottles were nearly drained.  Leaving David and Sarah to explore just a bit further, Anna and I collected cardboard boxes abandoned by other sliders, and slid hundreds of feet in a slow-controlled descent.  My pockets and wallet were full of sand for days afterwards.