Santa Fe Arts and Culture Magazine: View Article

Chaco-Bisti-Valles Caldera Digital Tours

By: Joe Bridwell

The Digital Tours can easily be viewed in terms of its deeply fascinating natural history and archeology! When we do so, we must think of the region from ancient times forward; what happened first - what happened last?

Bisti

Valles Caldera

Chaco

Our ancient Anasazi heartland has a natural history which stretches back some 70 million years.  A large sea once covered northern New Mexico and what is now the Bisti Badlands; verdant, humid rainforests stretched inland some 20 miles around the sea's boundary.  Several unique New Mexican dinosaur species abounded.  As they now sit, Bisti Badlands are an exquisite site of most distinctly surreal Hoodoos on our planet.

Our Bisti favorite was published as Cover, New Mexico Magazine, January, 2006.  Surreal Hoodoos have a distinct elegance which sets this region apart as off-worldly, ghostly, and other synonyms people use when they know something is different… One day in the Bisti only gives a small taste of the excitement and challenge its Hoodoos give avid photographers.  Yet, we suspect a mere glimpse is certainly a capable of creating an insatiable yearning for light, composition, and other challenges which never fail to create award-winning photography.

A million years ago, the Jemez Mountains, which had been building for some 10 million years, literally blew their top, much like the recent Mount Saint Helens volcanic explosion.  Today, the Valles Caldera National Preserve encompasses remnants of a more ancient massive volcanic explosion a million years ago.  Captured high in an intermountain moat, the Valles Caldera has been home to curious Pueblo tribes, Spanish conquistadores, and more recent ranchers.  Vast grasslands, often filled with tranquil, grazing bands of elk, sit amidst pine-covered high mountain ramparts.  In the summertime, when trees and leaves are green, classic thunderstorms begin to build by midmorning, culminating in pyrotechnic displays by late afternoon. 

"Summertime, and the living is easy..."

This famous line, a la Porgy and Bess, certainly encompasses our spring time Valles Caldera image, the famous remnant of a volcanic explosion.  For our Valles tour, we have additional charm of wild elk amidst high mountains and elegant meadows!  Who knows, there may even be thunderstorms.

Before we reach the Valles, we pass along the fascinating Jemez River Valley, a charming enclave for artists, native Indians, and travelers loving gorgeous red canyon walls which provide a quiet seclusion.

A thousand years ago, the ancient Anasazi culture created remarkably picturesque pueblos, some seven stories high with 800 rooms.  Recent studies suggest orientations of these ancient pueblos are aligned with solar and lunar events.  On our Chaco tour, old, crumbling walls of several buildings can be shown to clearly remind us of this ancient culture, and their close ties with truly remarkable calendars like the Sun Dagger, as well as petroglyphs of supernova explosions and passage of Haley's comet.

Here's a Chaco moonrise image at Magic Hour.  Galen Rowell’s Edge of Light [pink on top, blue on bottom] is shown left of the vertical cliff face on Fajada Butte to emphasize a soft spring sunset.  The Sun Dagger, the Anasazi calendar, is behind this butte.  Efrain Padro, a noted Santa Fe photographer, liked this image in a judged competition.