On the Road

Our mission is to proceed to Mesa Verde National Park, whose Centennial is next year, to design a poster for the event. We are granted permission to visit Square Tower, shown above from the road, which has been closed to the public since 1940. Our descent from the plateau rim begins down an aluminum ladder where we can see steps that the Ancestral Puebloans carved into the rock–no sissy ladders for them! They would farm beans, corn and squash above and live below in these alcoves. These “cliff dwellings” were built and occupied only for about 150 years from 1150 to about 1300 AD and marked the culmination of this society here in the high plateaus of Colorado. Today they live on as Zunis, Hopis and many other Indian tribes further south.

After the treacherous ladder business, we then had to squeeze through a very narrow slot which reminded me how long it has been since I was a svelt and trim ranger.

Here we are at the ruins, opps, not supposed to use that word–it might upset the Anasazis, er, I mean Ancestral Puebloans…..cliff dwellings would be more descriptive. In just 20 years since I visited this Park, many of the terms and theories have changed radically to describe these peoples and their lives. It’s hard to keep up with the new PC terms. Here the square tower is obvious but look at the tiny “crows nest” at the upper right above Martina’s head–this is a full 50 feet above the floor below–what craftsmen and what a view!

Here’s a look up inside the Square Tower at the many levels. In the lower left corner (inset) is a cob of corn left over 700 years ago!

Here is a Kiva, a ceremonial place where they built fires. They are very cleverly built with draft flues to feed the fires, baffles to direct the flow and very clever roof designs. This is the only complete Kiva in the Park and was used to reconstruct many others. We can only peer inside as they are very fragile structures today.

Well, it’s been an exhausting day and we’ve taken many photos that we will use for the project. We squeeze back through the rocks and reclimb the ladders to our car. It isn’t easy being a Ranger of the Lost Art! Stay tuned….

It’s off to Mesa Verde via Salt Lake City to pick up our Bambi Airstream trailer where we encounter a Wyoming Road Hazard–ranchers driving their cattle down from the high mountain valleys. Five hours later we arrive in Salt Lake City and stay with my old Jenny Lake Rescue Ranger friend Ted Wilson and his wife Holly. We are joined by Rangers Rick Reese, honorary 3rd mate on my tug Katahdin, and Bob Irvine who was my former boss and now a retired math professor. We camp six miles west of Lake Powell NRA boundary and enjoy burritos and a “propane” campfire.

And in the morning, we warm up with cafe latte and the New York Times as I explain the subtle nuances of the advantages of mechanized camping:

Martina and I hike the bottom of the canyon while the fearless Rangers climb above us, risking their lives at every moment. They will eventually rappel down these watercourses to the canyon floor where we now stand. After waiting at the bottom for them, we grow tired and retreat back to our Bambi trailer then proceed down the road towards Mesa Verde

We eventually reach Mesa Verde National Park–our goal is to produce a centennial poster (2006) of Square Tower–the tallest structure built by the Anasazi’s. We are camped in our aluminum bubble (with heaters running) under steel gray clouds that reach thousands of feet above us with sun lighting the green mountains directly south of us…Mesa Verde or green mesa. Stay tuned for our tour of this park…..

Our first stop is Mt. Rainier National Park–my favorite Park. I’ve climbed Mt. Rainier at least 4 times and spent two summers working on Camp Schurman in the early 1960s. Here we’re hiking with our friends Rog and Pam–this is Martina on the Pebble Creek trail. We stayed in the Paradise Inn that night which was the last night of operation before they close the building for two years for a remodel. Our Ranger Doug foundation donates to such projects–keeping the old lodge look in the Parks. That ugly round visitors center will be removed but I don’t think the new one is much better. Another of my projects would be to redesign Camp Muir at 10,000′ and remove most of the structures there except the historic buildings.

Here Martina is basking in the sun at Amphitheater Lake in the Tetons where I used to be a climbing ranger. This is at about 10,000′ on the route to the North Face of the Grand Teton–considered one of the finest alpine climbs in the world. We’re “back at the ranch” which is now the A Lazy D
after discovering the original branding iron of my uncle, David Abercrombie. Here’s what the branding iron looks like:

and here’s David Abercrombie posing for the Union Pacific Railway in 1936. His father was the founder of Abercrombie and Fitch, the great sporting goods store, that is, not the teenie-bopper one of today.

After a few more days rest, we’re off to Mesa Verde…..