CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
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.
From Crownpoint it runs 375 km to Crownpoint; allow about 7 h 46 of riding. The stops in between: Casamero, Kin Nizhoni, Pueblo Pintado and back through Kin Nizhoni. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
A broken stone tower rising out of the sagebrush is what you see first at Kin Ya'a, and it is one of the strangest sights in the Southwest. This was a Chacoan great house, built in the eleventh and twelfth centuries by the same Ancestral Puebloan culture that raised the monumental buildings of Chaco Canyon, some forty kilometres to the north. What makes Kin Ya'a special is its tower kiva, a round ceremonial room built up four storeys high, much of which still stands. Its name is Navajo and is usually translated as tall house. It is one of the outlying sites included in the World Heritage listing of Chaco Culture, linked to the canyon by what archaeologists believe was a formal road.
Read the complete Kin Ya'a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kin Ya'a is where the day begins. Next is Casamero.
Casamero is a small sandstone pueblo on the edge of a valley below the red cliffs of north-western New Mexico, near Prewitt and Thoreau, and it was built about a thousand years ago by people connected to the great Chaco culture. It is one of the Chacoan outliers, communities that shared the architecture, pottery and probably the beliefs of the great houses of Chaco Canyon, more than eighty kilometres to the north, and that were connected to them by a network of straight roads. The walls of Casamero, made of carefully laid stone, still stand to a good height, with the outlines of rooms and a great kiva, a large round ceremonial chamber, nearby. It is part of the Chaco Culture World Heritage site.
Read the complete Casamero write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Casamero comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kin Nizhoni.
Navajo speakers call it Kin Nizhoni, which means beautiful house, and the name has outlived the walls. This is one of the Chacoan outliers, a village of stone-and-mud buildings put up about a thousand years ago by Ancestral Puebloan people who were linked to the great centre at Chaco Canyon, some distance to the north. The outliers sit scattered across the high desert of northwestern New Mexico, often connected to Chaco by straight prehistoric roads, and each tells a piece of the story of a society that traded turquoise, pottery and macaw feathers across a very large area.
Read the complete Kin Nizhoni write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 106 km into the recorded legs you reach Kin Nizhoni. Next is Pueblo Pintado.
Pueblo Pintado stands in the high desert of northwestern New Mexico, on Navajo land, and it is the easternmost of the great houses connected to Chaco Canyon. Around a thousand years ago the people we call Ancestral Puebloans raised masonry walls here, several storeys tall, laying thin sandstone into patterns that still look careful today. The ruin has been roughened by weather, but the arrangement of rooms, the circular kivas and the long arc of the building are clear, and you can walk around it on a short trail.
Read the complete Pueblo Pintado write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pueblo Pintado, about halfway. Next is back through Kin Nizhoni.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kin Nizhoni write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kin Nizhoni sits at 219 km, about halfway. Next is back through Casamero.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Casamero write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Casamero comes up about 340 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kin Ya'a.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kin Ya'a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kin Ya'a closes the day.
Kin Ya'a → Casamero is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Casamero → Kin Nizhoni is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kin Nizhoni → Pueblo Pintado is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Pueblo Pintado → back through Kin Nizhoni is 82 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Kin Nizhoni → back through Casamero is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Casamero → Kin Ya'a is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.