The warm sun beats down as I walk the short hike from the small parking lot just off the highway. Down a hill to a small pavilion and up the rise beyond, always towards the plateau ahead. A ladder greets me, a short climb to an ancient, natural stone platform. I take a moment to enjoy the view from this vantage point before pressing on before I begin retracing old paths.
A wide walkway winds along the edge of a cliff, above which once stood a village now known as the Tsankawi ruin. As it constricts and climbs uphill, the trail is hard to miss. It has been worn deep into the rock from many feet and hundreds of years of erosion. In places, it is waist deep and narrow enough that going through the path rather than over it is problematic. These are ancient ways to be walked with reverence for those who originally trod here.
Remembering Those I Never Knew
Locations like this are amazing to me. Here, hundreds of years ago, a people lived lives not all that different. To stand where they once stood and be mindful of their past is to make a connection with history. This is true even when that history is largely a mystery. Despite social media, do we really know all that much about each other’s lives? It is certainly different, but not terribly so. After all, how much social media do you need to pry into the lives of the village in which you live and work your entire life?
Studying the sunken trails as I walk onward, I cannot help but notice the modern foot prints in the small, loose gravel of the ancient path. Here, in my modern footwear, I am truly retracing old paths. Not just those of an ancient people, but those belonging to anthropologists, historians, and archaeologists who studied this place long before I even knew of it. Millions of visitors to this national monument. My mind wanders back to how I tend to pass the time on long walks. I wonder what hopes and dreams these people, both ancient and modern, might have pondered right here.
