Southwest Trip 2026 Snapshots
See the VVI that looks like Roman numerals?
Closeup of the VVI. Enough coincidence to spawn a conspiracy theory
Hard to see, but there are rolled corn cob impressions in the mud, as well as an emulated footprint
Bill and Renee and another pot that Bill showed us
Bill looking out over his 2nd home
Renee climbing a live juniper as the only way in/out
Bill and Renee climbing up Juniper tree
A granary tucked behind a kiva that Renee found
If you look closely, this wall is held up by pencil thin supports
Closeup of the wall from previous photo
Renee over Lime Canyon
Bill crawling across narrow ledge. It doesn't look that bad in the photo, but it was scary to cross. Most habitation ruins in the area are in extremely defendable locations. A narrow ledge makes for a defendable entry/exit.
Me on the same ledge as previous photo. I subscribed to the butt-scoot method instead of crawling.
I think one of us inadvertently kicked this cactus to dislodge it.
Old pinyon bark
A long petroglyph panel. That "ramp" up the rock formation was the entry/exit
Looking the other direction down a couple hundred foot petroglyph panel with hundreds of figures
Climbing the ramp
A very challenging climb to get up to this panel
Precarious photography
Bill and his mountain lion panel
Yucca bloom
Pregnant woman panel
This hike involved a lot of crawling through passages
More crawling
Square kiva
Even more crawling
If you look closely, you can see an anthropomorph figure between the hand prints. It was probably embellished with pigments that faded or flaked off (yellow, white) unlike the red ochre of the hands, which has much better staying power
Huddling out of the rain on Cedar Mesa. Ruin in background.
Ruin after the rain
If you can read the ancient script, you know exactly where Renee is standing in the next photo
Child footprints high on a wall. The children were lifted above heads to make these impressions.
Dirty Devil country
Camper porn
Another location marked with ancient verse, placed the year of my birth
Even more ancient shallow sea floor
The big figure was superhuman-sized, maybe 15 feet tall
Ooops!