Wupatki and Sunset Crater

Wupatki Pueblo

We woke up to 33 degrees, but the sun was out. We headed down to Flagstaff. We parked our trailer at J&H RV Park (a really well kept up site with gravel filled pull-through sites), but its Wi-fi was poor. Then we headed to Wupatki National Monument which holds a number of well-preserved ruins from the 12^th century. We stopped at a number of box canyon dwellings and the Lomaki Pueblo, but the highlight was the Wupatki Pueblo. This community had over 100 rooms, many of them there for ceremonial purposes. This community was at the crossroads of several cultural traditions and has a mix of these cultures in its pottery and buildings. The complex includes a ball field, which the NPS has restored, one of 200 such fields in Arizona, but I don’t think we’ve ever seen one before. 

Idea of what it looked like

Then we went on to Sunset Crater, which last erupted between 1040 and 1100. There is evidence of villages that had to be abandoned when it blew. The ash layer may actually have led to the foundation of the Wupatki pueblo because the ash absorbed water, preventing evaporation and helping agriculture. As we hiked at the base of the crater, you could see the remnants of the lava flows and cinder cones, but the volcano itself is primarily made of cinder rock, where very little water is retained. Sunset crater was the last of the eruptions of multiple volcanoes centered on the San Francisco Mountains. As we looked around you could see lots of cinder cones around the area. 

Sunset Crater and Lava Fields