Halfway House and Chaco Culture National Historical Park - C

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Halfway House

   The Chacoans built roads that do not seem to go anywhere. From Chaco Canyon, the centre of an extraordinary culture that flourished in the San Juan Basin of north-western New Mexico around a thousand years ago, a road known as the Great North Road runs almost due north for about fifty kilometres, straight as a ruler across mesas and washes, toward Kutz Canyon. Along it stand small great houses, and the site known as Halfway House is one of them, a stone structure about halfway along the road, possibly a waystation or a ceremonial marker. Chaco Culture, including outliers like this one, was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 1987.

   Read the complete Halfway House write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Halfway House is where the day begins. Next is Pierre's site.

2. 2. Pierre's site

   North of Chaco Canyon, the Ancestral Puebloans built something that still puzzles archaeologists: a road. Not a trail, but a wide, carefully engineered path, about nine metres wide in places, running almost dead straight north across the desert for some fifty kilometres. It is known as the Great North Road, and Pierre's site sits right on it. This is a cluster of small structures built on and around a prominent sandstone outcrop, including what may have been signalling stations or shrines on top of the hill, and from its height you can see far across the San Juan Basin. Like Kin Ya'a to the south, it is protected as one of the Chaco outliers on the World Heritage list.

   Read the complete Pierre's site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Pierre's site comes up about 69 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chaco Culture.

3. 3. Chaco Culture

   Getting to Chaco Canyon is part of the point. The last stretch of road into this remote corner of north-western New Mexico is unpaved, rutted and washboarded, and after rain it turns to slick mud that can make it impassable for any kind of vehicle. Take that seriously: on a road bike it is tough, and on a big touring machine it can be miserable. But the reward is extraordinary. Between roughly 850 and 1150, the Ancestral Puebloan people built monumental great houses here, multi-storey stone buildings with hundreds of rooms, aligned with the sun, moon and cardinal directions, linked by straight roads across the desert. Chaco Culture National Historical Park was listed by UNESCO in 1987.

   Read the complete Chaco Culture write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 158 km into the recorded legs you reach Chaco Culture. Next is Kin Bineola.

4. 4. Kin Bineola

   Over a thousand years ago, the people of Chaco Canyon built great houses of finely laid sandstone, multi-storey buildings with hundreds of rooms and ceremonial kivas, and connected them with roads that ran straight across the desert. Kin Bineola is one of the outlying great houses, some distance south-west of the canyon, on the Navajo Nation in north-western New Mexico. Its walls still stand in places to several storeys, with the characteristic Chacoan masonry of small stones packed between larger ones. It is one piece of the World Heritage property for the Chaco Culture, together with the canyon and other outliers.

   Read the complete Kin Bineola write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Kin Bineola, about halfway. Next is Chaco Culture National Historical Park - C.

5. 5. Chaco Culture National Historical Park - C

   Chaco is a place where you have to earn the silence. The way in is a long dirt road, many miles of corrugations and dust, that leaves the paved highway in the high desert of north-west New Mexico and runs across open range before dropping into a wide canyon, and by the time you arrive, you have been shaken and quiet for a good while. Then you see the walls. Between about the middle of the ninth century and the twelfth, the Ancestral Puebloan people built a dozen huge stone buildings here, called great houses, of which Pueblo Bonito is the largest, with hundreds of rooms in a D-shaped plan, stacked several storeys high, and a vast number of ceiling timbers carried in from forests far away.

   Read the complete Chaco Culture National Historical Park - C write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Chaco Culture National Historical Park - C sits at 316 km, about halfway. Next is back through Kin Bineola.

6. 6. back through Kin Bineola

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Kin Bineola write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Kin Bineola comes up about 385 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Chaco Culture.

7. 7. back through Chaco Culture

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Chaco Culture write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 464 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Chaco Culture. Next is back through Pierre's site.

8. 8. back through Pierre's site

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Pierre's site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Pierre's site, late in the day. Next is Halfway House.

9. 9. Halfway House

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Halfway House write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 628 km.