Light of the Ancients
This image was taken after a hike over ice and snow. The trail would probably not be all that hard in the summer, but in the winter there are steep parts that are iced over. One specific part was crazy, you have to slide down a rock face, and land on a pile of rocks underneath, but in this case, the loose rocks had ice on them too! Shortly after you make it down the ice rock face, you see that Moon House is actually across a ravine. You have go down the ravine face, and back up the other side. It looks impossible, but as you get to each challenge, you see that its not all that tough, shy of sliding down the rock face.
Moon House is a unique puebloan/anasazi ruin in Bears Ears National Monument because many rooms were built behind a wall, deep in a recess of the canyon face. Because they were protected, these rooms are quite in tact, down to the sticks and paint they used to build them almost 900 years ago. Here BLM says its ok to enter, but you need to touch nothing and they have signs inside explaining that you cannot enter the rooms. I was hoping to get there at at time of day to catch some lightbeams entering this fairly dark area. I was glad to see we made it. The road out here was all 4 wheeling and hard to predict how long it would take, so I think there is more luck here than skill as far as getting the light was concerned.
Let me know what you think!
OH, thank you Bill- yes, you should know that you need a permit to visit, at least in the warm months. They limit the permits to only 20 a day, issued from a nearby BLM office, so you have to get there early! In the winter they are administered from a kiosk onsite.
I should also mention, please use the utmost respect when you visit, these places have been here for 900 years and should be for 900 more. That;s not to say you should not go see it. Its important to learn about these places in order to foster respect for them. Nothing will teach you like seeing them first hand. Read the book Last Child in the Woods. It basically says that if you lock out the world, no one will experience these places, and therefore, no one will love them. With no love, there is no one to fight for their survival. So I will not condone the idea that places like these should not be visited. They absolutely should be, to raise a future generation of people who will fight for their survival. Just do it with extreme respect, and with long term preservation in mind.
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