Safely reaching the opposite bank, I begin a 40-minute walk that leads to a cliff dwelling. Sheltered in an arcing sandstone alcove stand the remains of a 14-room stone structure. I explore alone, sharing the spot with only the spirits of its onetime inhabitants. The former tenants left behind personal marks of their occupation. Artists decorated cliffs with outlines of hands silhouetted in circles of ochre paint.
Fingerprints indent the buildings' mud mortar.
Scattered corncobs suggest the charter occupants farmed the river plain below, just as contemporary Navajo do now. They inhabited the region's arid valleys and mesas for hundreds of years before mysteriously vanishing in the 13th century. The park's museum holds the area's largest collection of Anasazi artifacts. Exhibits inside contrast the lives of the Ancient Ones with present-day tribes. Kivas were important to the Anasazi.