Chimney Rock Archaeology Area
General Overview:
Chimney Rock Archaeological Area (CRAA) lies on 3,160 acres of San Juan National Forest land surrounded by the Southern Ute Indian Reservation. The land mass camouflages the community of several hundred souls that settled it around the 10th century. They occupied the fringes of Anasazi society, driven from the downstream valleys as the environment deteriorated and the land could no longer support their numbers. This new home with its shortened growing season barely accommodated their agriculture, and it isolated them as their brethren to the south and west advanced their civilizations. But it offered a rich flora and fauna, allowing them to revert to the outmoded hunter and gatherer ways to supplement their subsistence.
Hundreds of individual sites dot the landscape. So far researchers have found 91 structures that may have been permanent structures, plus 27 work camps near farming areas, adding up to more than 200 individual rooms.
The high mesa holds 16 individual sites, 14 of which are residential. Four of these sites have been excavated and stabilized and are visited on the tour. The sites visited are the Great Kiva, Pit House, Ridge House and Great House Pueblo. Other sites have been excavated and studied, then reburied to protect them and the valuable information they hold.
Presentation: The Chimney Rock Interpretive Program (CRIP) tour is offered four times daily, seven days a week. Fees are paid at the Visitor Cabin and then the tour proceeds 2 ½ miles up the road to the upper parking lot with the tour guide. The tour is approximately one mile walking, and includes a 200-foot climb on the Pueblo Trail. The Great Kiva Trail Loop is wheelchair accessible. It takes about two hours plus driving time for the complete tour.
The tour guide will relate information about the site and surrounding areas. Included is the history of the site, excavation of the site and who may have settled here and why. Without written language, pictographs, or petroglyphs, there are no definitive answers but, instead, a lot of differing ideas about the history of Chimney Rock.
Preparation: Visitors should carry water and have good walking shoes, a hat, and sunscreen.