Hiking New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon: The Trails, the Ruins, the History

Product Description

Hiking Chaco Canyon is a guidebook for informed hikers who want a substantive yet accessible guide to hiking and camping at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, a World Heritage Site that the Zuni, Hopi, Acoma and other pueblos consider their ancestral homeland. The guide offers advice about what to bring to the canyon, information on camping at Chaco’s Gallo Campground, and personal accounts of hiking “Downtown Chaco” and the longer, sometimes remote mesa trails. Included is a summary of the canyon’s history before, during, and after the Ancestral Puebloan occupation, as well as an overview of current research in the canyon and a bibliography for those who want to learn more. One thousand years ago Chaco Canyon was a metropolis of massive stone structures at the center of Chaco culture. The book also includes maps and over fifty of the author’s photographs.

Review

James C. Wilson’s
Hiking New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon: The Trails, the Ruins, the History is a straightforward guide to a locale characterized by endless complexity. As Wilson writes in the introduction, ”The trails take you through 1,200 years of Ancestral Puebloan history.” At Chaco, visitors will ”stand before ancient shrines and open kivas where religious ceremonies were performed by priests a thousand years ago.” But first, you have to get there–no easy task, considering that Chaco Canyon is a three- to four-hour drive northwest from Santa Fe, and the last 16 miles are mostly unpaved and deeply rutted. It’s a journey Wilson has made twice annually for 40 years. Short of talking to Puebloan ghosts, his are among the most intimate insights a new visitor could hope to receive.
The Albuquerque-area writer breaks down the Chaco trails by chapter, beginning each with a quick description of access points, the time it takes to complete, and alternate routes. The former journalist then goes into greater detail about what you will see along the way and provides historical and geological information, studded with gently poetic prose. Of the ceremonial kiva Casa Rinconada, on Chaco’s South Mesa, he writes, ”A stone bench for sitting encircles the underground structure, large enough to accommodate dozens of celebrants. Stone stairways lead into the north and south antechambers from which the priests or dancers would emerge.” Wilson delves into the roadside ruins, local campground facilities, and Outliers (kivas, or Great Houses) in the region that connect to Chaco by networks of old roads.
Without overwhelming his hiking guide with too much scholarship, he succinctly educates readers about different groups that have occupied Chaco throughout the centuries. Hiking New Mexico s Chaco Canyon: The Trails, the Ruins, the History is published by Sunstone Press. –Jennifer Levin, Pasatiempo, Santa Fe New Mexican, December 20, 2019

About the Author

James C. Wilson has been hiking and camping at Chaco Canyon for more than forty years. After writing for both Santa Fe newspapers in the 1970s, Wilson taught journalism at the University of Cincinnati for thirty years, specializing in science journalism. He has published six books, including “Embodied Rhetorics: Disability in Language and Culture”; “Weather Reports from the Autism Front: A Father’s Memoir of His Autistic Son”; and “Santa Fe, City of Refuge: An Improbable Memoir of the Counterculture.” Retired, he lives on the West Mesa, across the Rio Grande from Albuquerque, New Mexico.