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ithilwenBet you were beginning to think you'd never see another one of these posts! HAH! You're not going to be so lucky.
Day 6 on the river finds us preparing for a hike. We depart from our campsite along the river:
... and head up the side of a very steep hill. Views looking down from the side of the hill toward the Colorado River and our campsite:
And what do we find at the top of the hill? RUINS!
This is all that is left of an ancient watchtower built by the ancestral Puebloan people who used to live on the Unkar Delta below (which you're going to see in a minute).
From the watchtower we hike along the ridgeline of the hill to its opposite side:
A pretty plant we pass along the way:
We're almost there...
And here we are, at the overlook spot. Looking down, we see the Colorado River again; it's wrapped it's way all the way around the hill, in a big S-shaped curve. The rounded portion of land to the right of the river is the Unkar Delta, where ancient Puebloans used to farm. The riffle is Unkar Rapids. it may not look like much from up here, but it's one of the biggest rapids on the river!
No one knows why the ancient Puebloans abandoned the Unkar Delta a few hundred years ago; the current theory is that the water levels int he river fell so low that their irrigation systems couldn't work, leading to crop failures. Looking at the size of the river below, it's hard to imagine that happening - but in the pre-dam era, the flows on the Colorado could be highly variable.
A few more views from the observation site:
Uh-oh, the weather's changing. We'd better get back to our camp!
Next: Some dramatic weather.
Day 6 on the river finds us preparing for a hike. We depart from our campsite along the river:
... and head up the side of a very steep hill. Views looking down from the side of the hill toward the Colorado River and our campsite:
And what do we find at the top of the hill? RUINS!
This is all that is left of an ancient watchtower built by the ancestral Puebloan people who used to live on the Unkar Delta below (which you're going to see in a minute).
From the watchtower we hike along the ridgeline of the hill to its opposite side:
A pretty plant we pass along the way:
We're almost there...
And here we are, at the overlook spot. Looking down, we see the Colorado River again; it's wrapped it's way all the way around the hill, in a big S-shaped curve. The rounded portion of land to the right of the river is the Unkar Delta, where ancient Puebloans used to farm. The riffle is Unkar Rapids. it may not look like much from up here, but it's one of the biggest rapids on the river!
No one knows why the ancient Puebloans abandoned the Unkar Delta a few hundred years ago; the current theory is that the water levels int he river fell so low that their irrigation systems couldn't work, leading to crop failures. Looking at the size of the river below, it's hard to imagine that happening - but in the pre-dam era, the flows on the Colorado could be highly variable.
A few more views from the observation site:
Uh-oh, the weather's changing. We'd better get back to our camp!
Next: Some dramatic weather.
