Damage at Fajada Butte?
I’ve had a go at setting up an archaeoastronomy channel on Youtube. Jsefick’s account is a bit of a goldmine for that as he has plenty of videos with interesting archaeoastronomical content. Searching for videos to favourite today, I found video above that there was an unauthorised landing at Fajada Butte. I found it extremely helpful as it taught me two things.
1) Fajada Butte is a restricted area.
That’s very handy to know as I’m the sort of person who would drive out somewhere on the off-chance of seeing something. If I ever visit the southwestern USA, then Fajada Butte is the sort of place I’d try and take a trip to because of a petroglyph site famous for an effect known as the sun-dagger. This is a spiral behind a couple of rocks. There’s a gap between the rocks so that on specific days of the year a shard of light shines onto the spiral, like a dagger.
I’ll be honest, I don’t know how much of this is coincidence. Still, there’s plenty written about it by intelligent people, so it’s the sort of thing I’d like to see. However, as the guide mentioned in the top video, Fajada Butte is so restricted that even they have very limited access. This is a shame, but I can see why it might be necessary. It’s handy to know before you go.
2) Butte rhymes with chute, not shut. Small linguistic details like these are important if you decide to go on a trip to “look at some buttes”.
For more about Chaco culture, I highly recommend visiting Gambler’s House.
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Thanks for the link. Further to what you say about Fajada, it’s actually completely off-limits to visitors, and almost completely off-limits to staff, who only go up very occasionally for special purposes such as checking out the damage from that landing. It’s also physically very difficult even for those who are permitted to go; there is a trail, but it’s steep and difficult, and in some places it’s almost but not quite a technical rock-climb. When staff go up there they wear harnesses.
The reason for all these restrictions is one of the great tragedies of southwestern archaeoastronomy, namely that due to overzealous visitation after the discovery of the sun dagger the soil apparently shifted under the rocks and the dagger no longer lines up the way it’s supposed to. While the petroglyph is still there, if one were to go up to it on the solstice the dagger would not pierce the center of the spiral the way it used to. So there’s not actually anything to see even if you could go there to see it.
All is not lost, however, as far as visible archaeoastronomy at Chaco. While there is not at the moment any really obvious archaeoastronomical markers open to the public, plans are underway to develop a petroglyph site near the visitor center as a public attraction. I don’t work at Chaco anymore, so I don’t know exactly how far plans have progressed, but it shouldn’t be too long before that site is open.
Thanks for the link. Further to what you say about Fajada, it’s actually completely off-limits to visitors, and almost completely off-limits to staff, who only go up very occasionally for special purposes such as checking out the damage from that landing. It’s also physically very difficult even for those who are permitted to go; there is a trail, but it’s steep and difficult, and in some places it’s almost but not quite a technical rock-climb. When staff go up there they wear harnesses.
The reason for all these restrictions is one of the great tragedies of southwestern archaeoastronomy, namely that due to overzealous visitation after the discovery of the sun dagger the soil apparently shifted under the rocks and the dagger no longer lines up the way it’s supposed to. While the petroglyph is still there, if one were to go up to it on the solstice the dagger would not pierce the center of the spiral the way it used to. So there’s not actually anything to see even if you could go there to see it.
All is not lost, however, as far as visible archaeoastronomy at Chaco. While there is not at the moment any really obvious archaeoastronomical markers open to the public, plans are underway to develop a petroglyph site near the visitor center as a public attraction. I don’t work at Chaco anymore, so I don’t know exactly how far plans have progressed, but it shouldn’t be too long before that site is open.