Although they vanished eight hundred years ago under mysterious
circumstances (most likely drought and war), many of their artifacts,
wall art panels, and rough stone dwellings survived well in the arid
desolation.
Strayer led the way up a sandy trail that soon hardened into solid
rock marked by cairns. The day warmed and we tied our layers around
our waists. One young woman in a ponytail wore red shorts with the
word UTAH written across her seat. Some students bounded ahead
comparing notes on the latest Michael Keaton movie and some
straggled behind, unused to exertion. Overall, the vibe of the class
was less jocky, more nerdy, wearing less high-tech clothing and more
nose rings and blue nail polish than I expected. For many, this was
their first time in canyon country. Most of them didn’t know each
other outside of class.
Before long we came to a half-crumbled dwelling nestled into a
smooth concavity in the cliff. Pottery sherds lay about, and you could
still make out the rounded rooms of the ceremonial kivas. Faint red
handprints and human-figure drawings frescoed the cave’s back wall.
The place had been hastily abandoned in desperate times. It was eerily
quiet among these ancient bedrooms and prayer rooms. We continued
farther on toward the crest of an exposed ridge and a breathtaking
frieze known as Procession Panel. Believed to date from the “basket-
maker period” around 700 A.D., it depicts a tight line of figures
migrating from some sort of portal, either spiritual or literal. It
presides along an ancient trail connecting two parts of the Anasazi
realm.
Over the following days, we ambled around similar sites, from a
vast wall painted by one artist known as “wolf man” featuring ducks,
yucca plants and what might be human heads shaped like light bulbs,
to ruins with names like Split Level and Long Finger. Our senses of
perception were shifting. The faint scrapings of rock art that at first
were hard to discern started popping out. We could spot the smooth