Continuing with my trip Out West, on August 27, 2016 I was starting my first full day at the Square Tower Campground at Hovenweep National Monument.
It was time to head out exploring.
I’ve mentioned before that it was what they call “monsoon” season. As summer wanes, the jet stream moves and thunderstorms or downpours become fairly common. I woke up to this view of Sleeping Ute Mountain. Expect to see many more pictures of the Sleeping Ute.
Sleeping Ute Mountain Morning
[Again, WordPress shows all pictures as 500 pixels wide. Most of my pictures are wider than that, like 750×500, and the particularly scenic ones I often do at 900×600. So click on them (or right click and open the link in a new tab) for the full-size versions.]
That was the view from my campsite’s picnic table (though I did have to stand on the table to get a better perspective).
After breakfast I headed out to the other nearby units of Hovenweep: Holly and Horseshoe/Hackberry. Here’s where they sit relative to the Square Tower (Little Ruin Canyon) unit and my campground.
Hovenweep Units
Getting to the other units is a bit of a challenge, and best done with a high-clearance vehicle. Here’s what the road looks like. The rocks are a bit of a challenge when it comes to not scraping the car’s undercarriage.
Drive Carefully
Here I am in front of the major ruins at Holly.
Holly Ruins
The Google Maps overhead view gives you a pretty good feel for how things are arranged.
Overhead Holly
I’m standing about where I’ve placed the red dot, and my camera/tripod were at the blue dot. One thing that’s not particularly obvious from these pictures is the placement of that nearer building. Here’s a better shot.
Precarious!
Yoicks! That’s a pretty precarious position, and it’s pretty hard to get to. Just think of trying to construct that.
After the previous picture I walked around to the other side. This time across the canyon you can see the large, flat platform I was standing on when I took the other pictures.
Looking the Other Way
From there I drove back to the Horseshoe/Hackberry unit. They had some “useful” advice at the entrance.
“Helpful” Advice
Hmmm. I’ve always counted bare feet as my sturdiest shoes. (Not only that, but these trails are among the most benign I’ve ever walked on.)
The portion nearest the entrance is Hackberry Canyon. Unfortunately, the ruins there are mainly pretty much . . . uh . . . ruined. When you think about it, it’s pretty amazing that the mortar has lasted as long as it has.
Ruined Ruins
Farther east is the Horseshoe, but I find I didn’t take any good picture of it. But you can see it in the upper right portion of this Google Map overhead shot (and you can see why it’s called the “Horseshoe”).
Horseshoe Overhead
However, I did manage to take a good close-up picture of the wall.
Wall Construction
Those extra little chips in the mortar help to hold things together by providing protection from the mortar shrinking and expanding with the weather.
And here is an even closer look at a portion of the wall.
Hi there!
Ah. A local resident. I think it is a fence lizard (but feel free to correct me if you know—my other choice was a common sagebrush lizard).
In fact, on this particular (short) hike I saw more wildlife than anywhere. I saw another one on my hike back through Holly towards my car.
The Scamperer
I also saw this lizard, which may be another kind of fence lizard?
What Kind of Lizard?
But don’t believe me! We don’t have much more than 5-lined skinks here in Ohio (that I’ve even seen), so my lizard-identification eye stinks.
And then there was this rabbit wandering around.
Hip-Hopper
Heading back through Hackberry I got a look down the canyon. It’s really not all that steep, except near the head.
Shallow Canyon
And of course, when looking around into the distance, there is always a good chance of seeing our good friend.
He’s Everywhere
Finally, while in Hackberry I wanted to actually get a good picture of a Hackberry tree. I’d seen some that were some marked with signs as I originally passed by, but they were off in the distance and didn’t really show up in any picture. It was only on the return trip that I realized I’d passed right by one next to the trail.
Trailside Hackberry
A hackberry is a kind of an elm. They require a bit more water than trees like junipers, so they are only found near the heads of canyons, where there are good water seeps. Finding a bunch of hackberries means there may be ruins nearby, since such water seeps marked good locations for the Ancestral Puebloans to live.
I was back to my car by around noon, and back to my campsite not too long after that (though I did a bit of driving around to get a feel for what was in the area). Later in the day there was a program at the Park Visitor Center, but I’ll save that for my next “Out West” post.
Ahcuah 
It is hard to make an identification from a photograph, but I would say probably a female collared lizard(Crotaphytus collaris). My basis is the abrupt change in width between the body and the tail (see the fence lizard for contrast). I don’t see the distinctive black “collar” at the neck, but it is quite narrow in the female. Sex is based on the female being brick red while the male is green with a yellow dewlap under the neck and throat. They have a slight indothermism in that they change to a lighter color as heat increases. When pursued, they run on their hind legs. One little girl’s reaction was, “Look Mommy, baby dinosaur.”
Thanks, Paul. My reptile identification book has one looking at the pattern of scales around the jaw. Somehow I don’t think that was an option for me.
SO GOOD that you’re continuing your trip write-up now, Bob.
And on the earlier subject of your choice of hiking clothing in hot weather – it doesn’t much matter to me WHAT you feel comfortable in and want to wear (or not), but just do be alert. I’m sure you’d rather not be the only source of funding necessary to send all your dermatologist’s kids through college.
And I loved your photo in an earlier post of the Twin Falls Tea House. I was first there in 1973 when it still served food to passing hikers. Unfortunately, it no longer functions as a tea house these days, but only as a chalet for very basic lodging.
One fun thing about doing it now is revisiting all the photos and remembering. On the other hand, I’m sometimes having trouble identifying just what I was taking a picture of.
Regarding the skin, I’ve always tanned up fairly well. I also suspect that most of my risk has come from the past 50 years and I can’t do anything about that. There is also some evidence that just plain gradual tanning (depending on one’s skin type, of course) (and not in a tanning booth) is not the problem, but burns. In that case, there was this time in 1970 visiting my grandmother in Florida . . .. But I do see a dermatologist yearly (just a few actinic keratoses).
My father used to work for International Harvester, and they had a 2 week shutdown every July. After he’d worked there a while he worked his way up to 4 weeks of vacation, and that picture, in 1971, was a 4 week trip to the Canadian Rockies. Badlands, Waterton-Glacier, Banff, Yoho, and Jasper. And our family has a long history of going there. I have pictures of my sister (from before I was born) there with my grandparents in the early 1950s, and even older pictures of them in the 1940s. We have a family story of my grandfather driving on one of the mountain roads with my grandmother hanging out the window to tell him how far from the edge he was . . . and my father with a very green countenance in the back seat.
Who and when built those castles?
As I mention, the Ancestral Puebloans. And in my previous blog post on this, I mentioned they are about 800 years old.
The Ancestral Puebloans have been called the Anasazi in the past, but that is falling out of favor. Their descendants, Southwestern Indians, build similar (but more elaborate) structures, and include the Hopi, Zuni, Acoma, Taos, etc.. The Ancestral Puebloans also built Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde. The Desert View Watchtower at the Grand Canyon is modeled on these sorts of structures.
The towers sitting precariously on the rock immediately reminded me of the famous old castle close to where I live, not much changed since the photograph was taken, around 1900:
The “cliff” (actually a stone quarry) steeply goes down more than 200 metres to the river Rhine.
Built 1138 to 1149, by the way.
Direct link to image on Wikimedia Commons:
