CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 Bloomfield it runs 416 km to Bloomfield; allow about 9 h 24 of riding. On the way it passes Halfway House, Chaco Culture, Pierre's site and back through Chaco Culture. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,050 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Twin Angels is where the day begins. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Halfway House comes up 35 km in. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
70 km in you reach Chaco Culture. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pierre's site, about halfway. Next is back through Chaco Culture.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chaco Culture write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chaco Culture sits at 139 km, about halfway. Next is back through Halfway House.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Halfway House write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Halfway House comes up 174 km in. Next is Twin Angels.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Twin Angels write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Twin Angels closes the day.
Twin Angels → Halfway House is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Halfway House → Chaco Culture is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chaco Culture → Pierre's site is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pierre's site → back through Chaco Culture is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chaco Culture → back through Halfway House is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Halfway House → Twin Angels is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.