On Tuesday, we packed up and headed out from Heron Lake. Fortunately, Ghost Ranch contacted Jeff the day before to say that we could come tour the Ranch after all. We were all excited and headed that way. On the way, we stopped to see Echo Amphitheater, which is a natural rock formation that makes a perfect echoing amphitheater...who would have guessed from the name. At Ghost Ranch, which Jakob and I read about in Deeply Rooted, two ranchmen talked to us about their cattle grazing program that is open to ranchers in the community. A rancher can put up to 40 head of cattle in the program to graze on the Ranch over the winter months. It is a really great program because many ranchers would have to sell their cattle before the winter because they could not feed them all. About 1,000 cattle roam the pastures of Ghost Ranch on a rotating basis during the winter. Every two weeks, ten of the ranchers help move all the cows to the next pasture. While it would be better to have smaller pastures that were rotated more frequently, Ghost Ranch's practices are far better than letting the cattle roam free all winter, a practice called "Columbus grazing" because the ranchers must "discover" their cattle in the spring. We saw a plot of land that had never been grazed since a CCC group fenced it in in the 1950s. It had more tall bushy plants, but the grass was very much the same as the grazed land all around it. Our visit to the Ranch was informative and gave us some input from actual ranchers, rather than scientists or ecologists.
Next we headed to Chaco Canyon. We stopped for lunch in Cuba, NM and had some delicious new Mexican food. We entered the canyon via a 37 mile long dirt road that was rather bumpy, especially in the van. Somehow a few people still managed to sleep for most of the road. Once we got into the Canyon, we stopped at the visitor center to register and then headed on to our campsite. The part of the Canyon we could see so far was breathtaking and we were all excited to go exploring. We set up camp in our large group camp site and then went on a tour of an ancient kiva ruin. GB was our guide and he was very informative and excited to tell us new information. The kiva was a 'great' kiva both because of its size and use. A kiva is a large, round, usually subterranean room that is used for religious ceremonies. The doors were facing due North and due South, with perfect alignment. Not much is known about the use of the structures inside. The two large rectangles could have been used for foot drums, for planting seeds, or for fire wood. A bench surrounds the entire inside of the kiva and there are a few niches inside the walls. Most are evenly spaced, but a few seem to randomly inserted into the wall. A roof probably covered the kiva and was supported by large wooden poles. A window on the east side of the building allowed light to shine into the kiva in a perfect rectangle during the Summer and Winter Equinoxes. The kiva had many parts of its architecture aligned with the cosmos; one would assume they were all planned intentionally, but we can never know for sure. After the tour, we hiked around to a few more pueblo ruins and then we went back to our campsite to hang out until 8:30 when a pharmacology professor that also studies herbal medicine gave a talk about plants in the canyon and their medicinal and food uses. The talk was really interesting and he even had samples to pass around. We all tried a bitter plant that helped numb the throat to reduce coughing and he passed around a plant that induces vomiting that we did not try. He knew a lot about plant uses and had made a powerpoint to illustrate some plants he did not have with him. The next day when we went hiking, we even recognized a few of the plants. The day was long but very informative and fun. I really enjoyed going to Ghost Ranch, even though I wish the cows had been there. It was neat to see the place that I had read about. Chaco Canyon was breathtaking and awe-inspiring. So many people lived there between AD 900 and 1150. To see the ways they routed water and built housing that was up to three stories high was so mystifying. If we had to do that now, I don't know that we would even survive. I had a lot of fun in the canyon and it continued to the next day when we went hiking and exploring even more.
-Katie Kilpatrick
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