Friday, July 23, 2021

Chimney Rock National Monument

After our fun morning tubing on the San Juan River, we headed further west to Chimney Rock National Monument. We parked at the contact station and paid the fee for our self-guided tour. It appears that there might soon be a more substantial visitor center to check out in the coming years.

After driving up to the top of the ridge, we got out of the car to see dark clouds on the horizon. We decided to hike what we thought looked like the more interesting of the two trails, up to the ridge with Chimney Rock. Immediately, there are the remains of a pueblo visible.



After checking out this first pueblo, we headed up the ridge 


to check out another set of remains that are closer to Chimney Rock and Companion Rock.



Sierra took a photo of myself and Noelle at an overlook of Chimney Rock.


Then, we headed down the ridge 


to check out the lower trail and more evidence of earlier inhabitants of this amazing area.



Upon leaving, we got caught in a pretty bad hail storm outside of Bayfield. Then we moved on to Durango for a stop at Ska Brewing 


before continuing on to our present location: Cortez, Colorado.

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