Pierre's site and Kin Nizhoni · 332 km

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. 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 is where the day begins. Next is Kin Ya'a.

2. 2. Kin Ya'a

   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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Kin Ya'a comes up about 102 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kin Nizhoni.

3. 3. 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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   about 166 km into the recorded legs you reach Kin Nizhoni. Next is back through Kin Ya'a.

4. 4. back through Kin Ya'a

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Kin Ya'a write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   back through Kin Ya'a, late in the day. Next is Pierre's site.

5. 5. 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 at Pierre's site. That is the ride.