Why this ride
It goes by way of Pierre's site, Twin Angels, Aztec Ruins National Monument and Halfway House. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,050 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Kin Bineola and Halfway House
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 465 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 10 h 47
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. 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 is where the day begins. Next is Pierre's site.
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 64 km into the recorded legs. Next is Twin Angels.
3. Twin Angels
South of Bloomfield, on the edge of the badlands of Kutz Canyon, a small Chacoan great house sits on a ridge with views over the San Juan Basin. Twin Angels Pueblo is one of the outliers of Chaco Culture, a stone building with rooms and a kiva, built around a thousand years ago by people connected with the great centre at Chaco Canyon, about eighty kilometres to the south. It lies near the end of the Great North Road, the long, straight Chacoan road running north from the canyon, and it is part of the UNESCO-listed Chaco Culture. It is managed by the Bureau of Land Management, and reached by a rough dirt road and a short hike.
Read the complete Twin Angels write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 124 km into the recorded legs you reach Twin Angels. Next is Aztec Ruins National Monument.
4. Aztec Ruins National Monument
The Aztecs never came anywhere near Aztec, New Mexico. The ruins here were named by nineteenth-century settlers who assumed, wrongly, that such impressive buildings must have been made by the famous people of central Mexico. In fact, they were built by Ancestral Puebloans between about 1100 and 1300, as part of the great Chacoan world centred on Chaco Canyon, sixty miles to the south, and they are included with Chaco in the UNESCO listing of the Chaco Culture.
Read the complete Aztec Ruins National Monument write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Aztec Ruins National Monument, about halfway. Next is Halfway House.
5. 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 sits at 202 km, about halfway. Next is back through Aztec Ruins National Monument.
6. back through Aztec Ruins National Monument
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Aztec Ruins National Monument write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Aztec Ruins National Monument comes up about 298 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Twin Angels.
7. back through Twin Angels
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Twin Angels write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 336 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Twin Angels. Next is back through Pierre's site.
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 Kin Bineola.
9. 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
The route ends here after 465 km.
Leg by leg
Kin Bineola to Pierre's site
Kin Bineola → Pierre's site is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pierre's site to Twin Angels
Pierre's site → Twin Angels is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Twin Angels to Aztec Ruins National Monument
Twin Angels → Aztec Ruins National Monument is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Aztec Ruins National Monument to Halfway House
Aztec Ruins National Monument → Halfway House is 67 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Halfway House to back through Aztec Ruins National Monument
Halfway House → back through Aztec Ruins National Monument is 62 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Aztec Ruins National Monument to back through Twin Angels
back through Aztec Ruins National Monument → back through Twin Angels is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Twin Angels to back through Pierre's site
back through Twin Angels → back through Pierre's site is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pierre's site to Kin Bineola
back through Pierre's site → Kin Bineola is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
More motorcycle rides nearby
- Twin Angels and Pueblo Pintado · 490 km
- Twin Angels and Pierre's site · 132 km
- Chaco Culture and Aztec Ruins National Monument · 379 km