We’re in Blanding, Utah at one our favorite stops, Blue Mountain RV Park.  Duke and Rose in the office that is also the Trading Post are quite the pair and are fun to deal with.  Gary is great and takes care of the park and also gives tours of all the wonderful things to see in the four corners area.  They have some beautiful Dinosaur Bone, Coprolite and Turquoise for sale as well as some incredible Native American jewelry.

While here, we went to see Hovenweep National Monument.  Anyone visiting the National Parks needs to know that our country’s National Monuments are nothing to sneeze at.  While not a full scale National Park, they are still well worth seeing.

Hovenweep consists of six clusters of Pueblo buildings scattered around the canyons of the Cajon Mesa of the Great Sage Plain.  The settlements are: Square Tower, Holly, Hackberry, Horseshoe, Cutthroat Castle, and Cajon.  Most settlements are based around ancient springs that they dammed to control the water.  Some of these settlements are in the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument territory.  We went to two of the Hovenweep sites.  It was a little confusing to find the second site.  Signage was spotty and the only thing we had to go by was verbal directions from the Ranger at the Visitor Center.  Even with the navigational challenges, these sites are well worth seeing.

There is a campground there with no hookups that can accommodate rigs up to 35 feet long.

The trail runs along the rim and is 1.5 miles long.  It is a good trail but can be a little uneven.  As we approached the rim of Little Ruin Canyon, we saw the twin towers.

The buildings here were constructed between 1230 to 1275 AD, about the same time as Mesa Verde.  The inhabitants came here from Chaco Canyon.  These towers are among the most carefully constructed buildings in the southwest.  One is oval and the other is horseshoe shaped and there are sixteen rooms total.

This is Stronghold House because it looks like a fortress.  Entry was by way of climbing a series of toeholds chipped into the rock or by climbing a wooden ladder.

This is Boulder House, named so because the building was incorporated into the huge boulder.

I think this is my favorite because it reminds me of a gnome house.  😉

Angie wanted to go play in it.

This is Tower Point and it has a complete view all the way up and down the canyon.  Some of the rooms in the tower were used to store food from the crops they grew.

There were about 100 to 150 people at this settlement.

Some people wonder whether they built fortress like buildings for protection.  Researchers think that at first they weren’t.

For many years after they arrived, this community thrived on the flow of water from the spring with this check dam.

But soon a 23 year drought struck the four corners area and food became scarce.  Neighboring tribes may have been forced to seek out food from neighbors and not necessarily in a kind way.

The lack of ground level doors, massive walls, portholes and high vantage points as well as protected springs all support the theory that this community was built with defense in mind.

By 1350 AD the community was abandoned.  It is thought they migrated to the Hopi Mesas of Arizona and to the Rio Grande Puebloan area of New Mexico.

Next we’ll see the Holly House site.