Hovenweep National Monument, Utah (Tim)

10/29/17 - Southeast Utah

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Hovenweep is a little-known park unit in Southeast Utah, on the border with Colorado and about an hour drive north of the Four Corners.

I almost lost the boys here. After I let them climb up on the entrance sign, I struggled to take a decent picture because the sun was behind the sign and at a low angle. When I finally was able to take a decent shot, I hopped in my car and drove off to the ranger station. At the station, I realized my cloth Boy Bag (thanks, Lois) was empty. Fortunately the boys didn't wander off and were still waiting patiently at the entrance when I left an hour later.

These pictures came from a 1.5 -2.0 mile walk. The pueblo remains, circa 1200 AD, are quite different from the adobe at Fort Union. Adobe comes from using wooden forms to make neat rectangular bricks from mud, sun-drying them, building a brick wall with some mud morter, then smearing more morter all over the bricks to give them that rounded look.

The indians at Hovenweep simply carefully selected natural rocks and aligned their flat faces to make a surprisingly smooth wall. The walls are two to three feet thick with smooth walls on inside and out. Irregular rocks filled the interiors of the walls. Morter held the rocks together.

Interestingly, sometimes they built rectangular structures, sometimes circular, and sometimes the two shapes were joined.