Colorado Hiking: Southwest Safari Camps - The Other Chaco Canyon - 7 Days
Colorado Hiking: Chaco Canyon Culture National Historical Park - Overview
Experience a unique and intimate Colorado hiking adventure vacation and exploration of the ancient mysteries of Chaco Canyon with this hiking trip in Chaco Culture National Historical Park and its outlying prehistoric sites. Chaco Canyon was a major center of Ancestral Puebloan culture between A.D. 850 and 1250 — a hub of ceremony, trade, and administration, remarkable for its monumental buildings and distinctive architecture. Offered in conjunction with the Four Corners Outdoor School of Education, we venture out each day on this unique Colorado hiking adventure with a professional archaeologist to learn how the ancients who once lived here conducted their daily lives. In addition to exploring the ruins and rock art produced by these early Chaco Canyon inhabitants, we take some time to hike and visit at least six other Chaco “outliers,” outside the park. Enjoy presentations on the art, architecture, and astronomy of this ancient culture each evening back at our comfortable, safari camp.
Chaco Canyon Hiking - Itinerary at a Glance
- Arrive in Durango, CO and transfer to a private campsite on Ruby Ranch 17 miles south of Chaco Canyon for welcome dinner and orientation
- Stop at the park visitor’s center, visit Una Vida, Hungo Pavi, and Pueblo Bonito then on to the magnificent Pueblo Bonito, an enormous D-shaped complex that stood four stories high and contained 40 kivas and 600 to 800 rooms
- Visit Chetro Ketl and Pueblo del Arroyo then hike to Penasco
- Visit the great kiva at Casa Rinconada. A hike up the South Mesa brings us to Tsin Kletsin, Navajo for “black wood place” or “charcoal place”
- Explore selected southern outlying pueblo's that are believed to be politically and economically linked to Chaco
- Depart for two other outliers, Pueblo Pentado and Aztec National Monument
- End in Durango to spend the night in the Starter Hotel with a final celebratory dinner at a Durango restaurant
- Following breakfast, depart for airport for return flights home
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