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 Bloomfield it runs 490 km to Bloomfield; allow about 10 h 27 of riding. It goes by way of Aztec Ruins National Monument, Halfway House, Chaco Culture and Pueblo Pintado. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,100 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
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 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Aztec Ruins National Monument comes up about 38 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 100 km into the recorded legs you reach Halfway House. 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.
Chaco Culture, about halfway. 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 sits at 194 km, 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 comes up about 309 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 390 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Halfway House. Next is back through Aztec Ruins National Monument.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Aztec Ruins National Monument write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Aztec Ruins National Monument, late in the day. 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.
The route ends here after 490 km.
Twin Angels → Aztec Ruins National Monument is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Aztec Ruins National Monument → Halfway House is 62 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Halfway House → Chaco Culture is 81 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chaco Culture → Pueblo Pintado is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pueblo Pintado → back through Chaco Culture is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chaco Culture → back through Halfway House is 81 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through 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 → Twin Angels is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.