Though today Chaco Canyon is home to crumbling ruins in a dry canyon 30 miles from the nearest paved highway, between the time period of 1,000 and 1,100 C.E., it was the social, economic, and religious center of the most complex and sophisticated society north of Mexico. Much of the canyon and ruins are open to hiking and exploration.
The Penasco Blanco Trail, also beginning at the parking lot for Pueblo del Arroyo, leads not only to the ruins of the 9th-century pueblo but also to one of the canyon's best concentrations of pictographs on rocks and canyon walls.
Whether you come in from the north or the south, you've got a good 45-minute, dirt-road ride through canyons and cattle fields and along arroyos and mesa-sides before you find yourself at the museum and visitor center. There's a primitive campground, but no services are available in the canyon.
By Travel Expert:
Steve Metzger
What You Can Do in Chaco Culture National Historical Park
Powered by Trip.com
