The Path of the Ancient Ones

I run along the precipice of the Colorado Plateau in Mesa Verde National Park.  The sun is strong, and the day is quiet enough that all I hear is my labored breathing and the rattling of stones clinking against the cliff and bouncing down the embankment. The ledge is wide enough for two people to walk hip to hip until I reach a boulder somehow clinging to the wall and resting atop a half-dome.  A narrow passage was cut through the rock, whether by humans or natural forces I don’t know, and I slip through the tight corridor sideways as my chest brushes against the smooth stone.

On the other side of the corridor is a cavern tucked underneath the top of the plateau.  The walls are blackened with soot.  Those fires could have been built by the Ancestral Pueblos, who are sometimes referred to as the Anasazi, a Navajo term that means “enemies of our ancestors.” The Ancestral Pueblos, the preferred moniker, lived in Mesa Verde since the eighth century.  They survived in these harsh lands for a few centuries, and they relocated for reasons not totally understood by archeologists.

Beyond the bend in the plateau, I climb a pile of rubble to study a wall adorned with pictographs.  There are stick figures with long bodies and thin arms, handprints, swirly symbols, and long-necked animals that could be lizards or coyotes.  Was this a warning message to intruders?  Or a welcoming sign?  Was this art practical or made for recreational purposes? I don’t know what to make of these ancient doodles.

I hear voices and approaching footsteps, and I need to be pressing on, so I climb up onto the ridgeline.  I have left the red rock canyons behind in Utah and now stare at the tree-filled greenery below from which Mesa Verde gets its name.  I jog toward the parking lot a few miles away while thinking of how fit the ancient ones had to be in order to live here.  It must have been normal for every abled-bodied villager to climb with ease and run for miles in the dogged heat. I envy their physical prowess.  Now I cannot imagine a time in which laziness was a death sentence.

I reach the parking lot and drive a few miles to the trailhead toward the Balcony House, a cliff dwelling reachable only by steep ladders. The Ancestral Pueblos lived in these alcoves in the cliff under the rock outcrop of the plateau.  The structures faced south so as to take full advantage of the sun’s position.  Winters here at high elevation get very cold, but their homes receive ample sunlight.  During the brutal summers, their homes are cast in the shade a large portion of the day.

There is a large congregation of thrill-seekers in the parking lot.  A ticket for a ranger-guided tour is four dollars and beats any hundred dollar admission into an amusement park that only promises cheap thrills that don’t come cheap.  The Park Ranger is lanky and thin, and he sports a red beard. He leads us down a set of stairs and then a paved trail until we reach a wooden ladder that is thirty feet high and leaning securely against the cliffside. 

The Ranger tells the group that if anyone is afraid of heights the trick is to not look down.  A fleshy woman seems distressed at the climb, but two young girls next to her play it cool as though this is nothing but a household stepstool.  The Ranger goes first.  I allow a woman and her husband to go before me.  The woman shoots up the ladder with ease, but the man grabs each rung carefully and studies his next move.  I grab onto the first plank and look above to see the bottom of the man’s soles and his khaki-covered behind.  I give the man some time before I ascend. 

As I near the top I look down and wonder if the fall would be deadly or only high enough to break precious bones.  I am not considering this out of any sick reason but to imagine the consequences of such a fall for the Ancestral Pueblos.  They did not have the luxury of a wooden ladder but instead used natural footholds in the rock or pegs later embedded into the stone.  I hoisted myself into the cave and photographed the cliff dwellings before more people showed up and obstructed the view. 

   

Builders made bricks from sandstone and layered them with adobe mortar.  Individual houses are quite different compared to our modern homes.  The cliff dwellings are remarkably small, and there are no doors, only windows.  Each room is built atop the other, and the second-story is accessed by an exterior wooden balcony rather than a set of stairs.

 

When I worked on a cruise ship, I shared a room the size of a walk-in closet, and when I told guests how small my quarters were, they usually said, “I bet you don’t spend much time in your room anyways.” Thus I hope it was for the Ancestral Pueblos.  There seemed room enough for a small family to sleep on the floor bundled together.  A tour of the house is akin to sticking your head into the window for a few seconds.

As everyone reached the perch, we all crowd around the ranger who says he wouldn’t mind having this view to wake up to, and he points to the canyon floor and the cliff opposite us cast in an orange glow from the setting sun.

“Could you imagine sipping your morning coffee and sitting on the balcony here?” the ranger asks.

He tells us that archeologists dug up pottery fragments that were found on the canyon floor, and a few cups contained residue of a bitter chocolate.  They weren’t drinking coffee, the ranger says, but hot chocolate, except not like the kind we know today.  The thought of an ancient people sipping a drink I’ve drunk before on this very place that I now stand makes me feel as though there are many facets of humankind that have not and will not change——namely the love of chocolate. But I don’t realize the historical significance of this until the ranger tells me.

“Chocolate of that kind could only be found in modern-day Mexico,” the ranger says. 

This indicates the Ancestral Pueblos traveled extensively and traded with others.  This piece of information sticks with me the most.  Before hearing this I never understood the significance of collecting ancient eating utensils.  At museums I’ve stared at many Viking artifacts without amazement because I believed I was only looking at rusty forks and broken bowls.  Household items may seem mundane because we are constantly surrounded by them, but they play a major part in our existence.  I drink two cups of coffee every day, and my coffee cup is one of my favorite and most often used possession.  Most Americans understand a preference to live with convenient access to caffeine.  A trip to Mexico across the rugged desert to get their cocoa fix only adds to my respect for the ancient ones.

The ranger leads us up a small ladder and through a narrow hallway and on top of the kiva, a sacred underground room used for meetings and religious ceremonies.  The subterranean room is circular and features a bench.  A small hole in the ground called a sipapu symbolized the Ancestral Pueblo’s emergence from the underworld.  It seems these people lived in canyons within canyons within canyons.

It’s a common misconception to say that the Ancestral Pueblo people disappeared.  They disappeared from places like Mesa Verde, but they did not vanish altogether.  They moved south to places like modern-day Arizona and New Mexico, but their reasons for moving are varied.  Many archeologists believe the Ancestral Pueblos relocated due to a combination of drought, soil erosion, and deforestation.  Warfare over limited resources may also have contributed to their abandoning their homelands in search of a more suitable place to live. 

To exit the cliff dwelling, I crawl through tight hole that the Ancestral Pueblos built for defensive measures.  If I stand ten feet away from the hole, I could convince myself that I will not fit, but I squeeze through. 

On the other side is another ladder and three small switchbacks on a smooth-rock slope equipped with chain railings.  I reach the parking lot again and drive toward a public shower and laundry facility. Under the light of a full moon, a family of deer watch me as I lug my laundry bag toward the washer.  An old man inside the laundromat asks me if I speak English.  When I tell him I do, he says the quarter machine is broken, and I’ll have to get change at the campground store. I thank him regardless of the sufficient change in my pocket and dump my dirty clothes into the washer and close the lid.

It has been five days since I’ve showered, so I stand under the spray of the hot water and scrub myself clean of the desert sand.  I towel off, dress, and walk into the breezy night air.  While my clothes spin in the wash cycle, I think about where I will sleep tonight and how far I will travel in the morning.       

To Zion

A pile of rubble from a rockslide blocks the road through Zion National Park.  All the parking lots are full so I turn around and find a spot near a Subway restaurant a short walk from the park’s entrance.  You can only drive past the checkpoint beyond the parking lots if you are staying at the hotel, which I am not.  I hop on a shuttle bus that takes me along the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive. 

After driving for nearly three weeks, I initially object to giving up my independence behind the wheel, but eventually I relish the break from constantly putting my foot on the gas, as my cruise control is broken.  Then it dawns on me that a virtually car-less national park is a wonderful idea.  This means more park and fewer parking lots.  Not to mention that I can gaze out at the cliffs without the risk of driving off the road or hitting an animal.

I made a vow to see as much as possible on this road trip by choosing one hike that captured the essence of each national park I visit.  Angel’s Landing is perhaps one of the most well-known hikes in the country and certainly would have made for a more thrilling story because the hiker must balance on a thin sliver of rock overlooking the canyon floor thousands of feet below. From my vantage point on the bus, the chalky clifftops are dotted with ponderosa pines, and the splotches of blood-orange on the cliff walls remind me of a poison ivy rash on pale skin.

I hear the bus driver’s voice through the speakers.  She is pointing out hikers on the ridge and climbers halfway to their destination.  I can see a smidge of contrast from the climber’s shirt, and I can see the hikers’ silhouettes against the sunny sky.  It took me a while to spot the people, and I only managed this because a couple in front of me pointed and expressed amazement that somebody would be crazy to put themselves in a such a position, but this is exactly where people go to do just that.  Those specks were summiting Angel’s Landing.

 

As much as I would have loved to be one of those specks that bus-riders point at with bewilderment, I was one of the bus-riders. I thought I was already putting myself at risk by driving across the country into very remote areas by myself.  I kept in touch with Erin every day, but sometimes I drove into dead spots and I couldn’t reach her for a day or two. Before I went for a hike I texted her where I was going and mentioned the trail name, but I didn’t think hiking alone on a narrow ledge near a Looney-Tunes-esque plummet was such a bright idea.  Instead, I choose to hike into the Narrows and slosh through the Virgin River that cut through the rock to create Zion.

I get off the bus at the Temple of Sinawava and walk along the riverside path amidst a sizeable crowd of hikers of all ages.  The heat of the sun is intense.  I see men walking in the opposite direction.  Their shorts are wet at the knees, and their footprints leave watery traces on the dusty ground.  The silty river is a mere trickle as it gargles through the desert swamp.  I follow the path to the point where the walls close in so tightly that the river becomes the path, and I can’t walk without getting wet. 

On the stony embankment, hikers take off their shoes and set them down on the ground and start wading into the ankle-high river.  They trust the shoes will be there when they return, and I don’t blame them because this place isn’t exactly a hotbed for criminal activity. I step into the cool water of the Virgin River as it winds serpentine-like around bend after bend.  Sunlight slants into the canyon and makes the slick walls glisten.  If the angle is just right, the sun strikes the underhang and makes the walls glow an iridescent orange.  In the shade, the green leaves of the pinon trees contrasts against the charcoal cliffs.

I am struck with an urge to keep going and to see what is around the next corner.  Waterfalls on steep slopes add to the growing stream which is up to my knees.  I see the shadow of a man against the white water and take his picture with my iPhone. 

This is exactly the kind of image I’ve been searching for:  a person dwarfed by the immensity of this wilderness and amazed by a beauty that can turn deadly.  The river is getting faster now.  If there were to be some faraway storm that raised the river only by a few feet the water would rage inside these walls and crush us against the stray boulders and trees ripped from their roots causing us to drown in a violent torrent, but there is no threat of that today.

The water’s depth is uneven.  A line of hikers choose the easiest path through the shallows, and I venture to the opposite side and sink up to my stomach.  There’s a reason everyone else is using that particular lane.  I join the line and trip over a submerged rock.  A woman returning to the parking lot offers me her walking stick. She says she doesn’t need it anymore but it’ll be a huge help, so I thank her and take the stick. I grow impatient with the traffic because I want to take photographs unhindered by human presence, but I’ll have to go farther to achieve this. 

An hour goes by, and my progress is slow because I have to move tactfully to avoid the rocks, the rapids, and the deep end.  The frigid water combined with the shade is starting to make my feet feel numb.  I feel assured that soon I will be able to touch both walls simultaneously and I’ll find solitude.  But I never reach that point.  Each time I round the next bend I expect to be alone.  Surely, I think, nobody else will have gone this far, but someone already has.

I shouldn’t be surprised that so many people ventured this far.  Like me, their curiosity led them farther than it does on an average hike.  Each stretch of the river promises new contrasts of shimmering water against the red cliffs and another opportunity to photograph the peek-a-boo fashion of the light filtering into the slot from a sky that seems engulfed by this rocky fortress.

I keep hearing people say, I want to keep going and going.  I see an old man with white hair under his ball cap walking next to someone who could be his son.  I pass a German man holding the hand of his young daughter who could be no older than five.  The water is so deep at certain places she could dive for quarters, but here she is walking in the shallows of this cold river and not making a fuss.

God's Country

The ancient ones believed the Grand Canyon was the womb of the Earth from which people emerged. I refer to the Ancestral Pueblos, an ancient culture of Native Americans who settled in the American Southwest around 1,400 years ago. Ranging from the canyonlands of Arizona and Utah over the Rocky Mountains to the Colorado Plateau, these groups thrived in demanding environments by building their houses inside the cliff walls, strategically chosen to take advantage of the winter sun and summer shade.

Inside the cliff dwellings, the Ancestral Pueblos built houses six to eight feet high off of level ground.  They also dug a kiva, essentially a circular basement used for ceremonial get-togethers. The kivas often had roofs, and ladders were used to descend into the underground chamber.  Inside, they lit fires, and the smoke would filter through ventilation in the ceiling.  Kivas undoubtedly had practical purposes like staying warm during the winter and staying cool during the summer, but the kivas were also symbolic. A sipapu, a hole much like a belly-button on the floor, represented a portal to the underworld.  The Grand Canyon, then, could be interpreted as the kiva of the Earth.

The Ancestral Pueblos left no written record, so it is only possible to catch glimpses of their lives through archaeological finds.  Little is known of their religion except through comparisons with the Ancestral Pueblos’ modern counterparts.  Pueblos pray to kachinas, spirits in charge of nature’s forces, and their beliefs are centered on harmony between humankind and the health of the Earth.

For an American living in a predominately Christian nation, it is common to label an awe-inspiring, vast land as “God’s country.”  When I hike into the Grand Canyon, however, I see the absence of God.  Instead, I see a different kind of faith.

I don’t know much about geology, so I have to believe the experts. Over a billion years ago, volcanic islands collided with the North American continent, and magma seeped through the cracks of the Earth’s crust.  This process formed the base layer of the canyon——a pinkish granite. Then a shallow and muddy sea filled North America from western Montana to the Great Lakes, and a green layer of shale was formed.  Around 280 million years ago came the sandstone enriched with iron, which gives the land a red hue. The Colorado River weaseled its way through the cliffs and eroded the rocks during an ongoing process that began a few million years ago.

If the ages of these rocks are believed to be true, the Bible’s estimation of the world’s birthday is refuted. I don’t believe in the Bible or in any god, but I don’t think that challenging a sacred tradition should be taboo. I recognize that I am uninformed, both in geology and spirituality, but I have a choice as to whom I believe:  a priest or an archaeologist.  I have no way of fully understanding how geologists can pinpoint dates of rock formations and trace their evolution through continental and tectonic changes unless I become an expert.  Until then, belief in their findings remains a faith.

 

If the oldest rock in the Grand Canyon is over a billion years old and the Bible claims that God created the world six thousand years ago, it is a contradiction to say that the Grand Canyon is God’s country. How you wrestle with that conundrum is an internal debate, but I am more concerned with another matter. Many Native American religions pay deep homage to the natural world.  Natives worshiped the sun and danced for rain.  On the other hand, the dominant Christian image has little to do with Earth but mostly of heaven.  In comparison to Native American beliefs, Christianity makes Earth seem like an afterthought. 

I was raised as a Catholic, but, like most Americans, I watched football more frequently than I attended church. Religion was never thoroughly discussed at family get-togethers; it was only a tradition of beliefs that were never stated and never questioned.  Every few weekends my mother would take me and my brothers to church, and I would bring my Gameboy and play Pokemon while the priest delivered his sermon. I don’t remember any of the sermons, only the constant exercise of standing and getting down on my knees.  My family, like most in America I would assume, half-assed churchgoing so that we could cover our asses during the final day of judgment.

This acceptance of infrequency sparked me to abandon my religion. I saw my immediate relatives using religion in two ways: when it was convenient for them to ease pain or to incite fear.  And all of it dealt with the admission into heaven and the avoidance of hell.  If someone died, they consoled themselves with the belief that they’re “in a better place,” namely, heaven, which is a much less depressing notion than to believe that the dead are conscienceless worm-food decomposing in expensive boxes under the soil.

 

In order to reach this executive suite in some obscure location I assumed to be beyond the clouds, a dutiful Catholic was expected to follow a set of rules:  pledge allegiance to Jesus, don’t cheat on your wife or borrow your neighbor’s lawn mower without returning it.  Any alternative would result in burning in an eternal fire.  I could hardly stand taking showers with sunburned skin, so, of course, I wanted to avoid that horrific future.  With these rules, however, there is a catch:  if you break one, you can still get into heaven if you confess your sins.

 

This loophole shredded any credibility I held in what I already believed to be a fallible institution.  The role of my behavior seem less significant than the thoughts in my head. Should a well-behaved atheist be denied admission before a murderous believer who said he was sorry?  There is so much focus on how to conduct myself strictly for the afterlife, but what about my current life, the only one I know with certainty exists?  And what about my relation to the planet and my devotion to the betterment of my species?

I’m not saying there is no god, but the one I’ve been presented with surely prefers his own paradise over the sphere of rock upon which he claims the ground is cursed.  In Genesis, the earth is associated with submitting to sinful behavior compared to the Ancestral Pueblos’ beliefs that the earth is sacred and nature is benevolent. So then, how does one rectify the disparity between these connotations?  And how does one deal with the understandings of the natural world and a religion with histories and dates that contradict modern discoveries? 

Is it possible to convince oneself of separate, competing beliefs?  Can one believe in plate tectonics, erosion, and the metamorphosis of rocks and still leave room for a credible god?  Or must one believe that all those things are god:  that god is not a man with a conscience who created the canyon but god is a creating force?  In other words, god would be the faceless and formless force behind continents colliding and rivers eroding the cliffs.  That seems less of a Christian god and more of a Native American spirit. 

  

When you gape at the enormity of the Grand Canyon and proclaim it as God’s country, consider how convoluted that thought is. One could interpret that statement in several ways that don't necessarily mesh. Ancestral Pueblos believed this to be a sacred place, the Earth’s kiva, while Christians may believe this to be a wonder of god’s creation.  Others, including myself, believe in the age of the rocks and a billion year process that is ongoing.  All of these beliefs attempt to fill a void in a past that, in the present moment, can only be imagined.

The Passenger Seat is Empty

For the last three thousand miles Erin was my copilot. I won’t lie and say this was the most romantic getaway.  We learned things about each other we didn’t like.  We both made selfish decisions and let the resentment build with the silence. But we co-designed this trip and made every decision together. We took turns driving, and we split the costs of gas and food. I went to a winery, even though I had no interest, because I knew she would enjoy it. Undoubtedly, she entertained a fancy of mine even though she didn’t fancy it herself. We did what every couple should do if they want to succeed:  we compromised.

I resisted the urge to play country music because I know she hates it.  I wanted to navigate exclusively with maps.  During previous outings she grew impatient with me when I overlooked a faster route, so I used the GPS.  She usually got tired before me, so I volunteered to drive at night, on rough terrain, in heavy traffic, or during inclement weather. I wanted to lighten her load and take care of her.  All the while, I wanted to take risks and experience a true adventure.

My ideals have always been romantic and a tad melodramatic.  When I was a kid, I wanted to run away with a girl I was in love with.  Alone, excitement has a threshold. There is a certain feeling of euphoria that can only be experienced when two people meet at a farfetched destination they never expected to reach. Our futures feature multiple avenues, most of them elusive and ephemeral, and every once in a while we follow a road we know not where it leads. I wanted to go into this uncertainty with someone, and we could find the answers together.

A few weeks ago, I stood outside the gates of Fort Clatsop, Oregon, the site where Lewis and Clark wintered near the southern banks of the Columbia River after their transcontinental expedition. I was full of envy of my predecessors for their chances to venture out into unmapped territory. Before me lay a forest blotted out by the night. A cold wind blew and shook the tree branches. My meager headlamp pierced a minuscule crack in the darkness, and I asked Erin to hop the fence with me. This was the adventure I was looking for, but I never stopped to ask myself:  What was I hoping to stumble upon?

I always thought I could defy the ultimate compromise we all end up making when we choose whether to settle down or to live without structure. This trip was my testing ground.  I wanted to believe I could make a nest, and then take it on the road with me. I wanted to convince myself I could be a caretaker and a wanderer, living both on the edge and somehow with responsibility. I was determined to complete the journey from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Maybe Erin was, too, but she decided to fly home to be with her family and to set her professional life in motion. I understand her decision and don’t blame her for it, but, selfishly, I wanted her to stay.

In the parking lot outside the mob museum in Las Vegas, Erin arranged her suitcases in the trunk while I sat next to her holding a turkey and cheese sandwich. I hadn’t eaten in hours, and I was starving, but I couldn’t stomach a single bite. She was overcome with a sadness that surprised me.  Usually I am the softy holding back tears and asking for another hug.  All day long she had been exceptionally affectionate——clingy, even, which I welcomed. Nonetheless, I built up walls inside of me to prepare myself for the separation.  We had spent the previous 110 days together at work, at home, in the car.

 

Now, at the airport in Vegas, we embrace, and she turns toward the doors.  The wheels of her suitcase roll away from me.  She swivels on her feet, faces me once more and waves. I smile and retain the image of her in my mind.  While she opens the doors and moves toward the ticket counter and out of my sight, I wrestle with our memories, which have now become both painful and pleasant to conjure up. These memories mock me in my isolation, but they, too, provide comfort.

 

The passenger seat is empty, and the course of my future ruptures. I grew accustomed to the frequency of her presence like an addict, and now I have to learn to live with her shrinking role. The doses will become smaller and smaller as the relationship fades from the collision of skin to faceless phone calls that are further reduced to a name on a screen and words typed by thumbs and then long stretches of sightlessness and silence.

Under the harsh light of a gas station outside of Vegas, I dump out the water from the cooler and buy a new bag of ice and stick the cooler next to my jug of water and my bag of snacks sitting on the passenger seat. Now that Erin is gone, I need my supplies to be within reach. I’ll cover less ground and try to avoid driving at night. I try to make a set of rules for myself, but now that I’m alone I can break my own promises.

I yearn to establish a new routine and console myself with sites yet to be seen and trails yet to be hiked. I follow the highway signs beyond the Hoover Dam and into Arizona toward the Grand Canyon. I stop at a Walmart in Kingsman after midnight and curl up in the backseat. I have more space to sprawl out and stretch my legs, but I would rather be squished than to carry on a solo journey. Before I fall asleep, I try to embrace my new solitude despite my desire to be reunited with Erin. I wonder if it is possible to have both love and freedom. Or is there only room enough for one?