Roberts - Sandstone Spine: first traverse of the Comb Ridge

SANDSTONE SPINE

THE MOUNTAINEERS BOOKS

is the nonprofit publishing arm of The Mountaineers Club, an organization founded in 1906 and dedicated to the exploration, preservation, and enjoyment of outdoor and wilderness areas.

1001 SW Klickitat Way, Suite 201, Seattle, WA 98134

2006 by The Mountaineers Books

All rights reserved

First edition, 2006

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Acquiring Editor: Cassandra Conyers

Project Editor: Laura Drury

Copy Editor: Joeth Zucco

Cover, Book Design, and Layout: Mayumi Thompson

Cartographer: Moore Creative Designs

Photographer: Greg Child

Cover photograph: Anasazi cliff dwelling and Comb Ridge (inset)

Back cover photograph: Potsherd

Frontispiece: Chinle Wash

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Roberts, David, 1943

Sandstone Spine : first traverse of the Comb Ridge / David Roberts ; photographs by Greg Child.-- 1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-59485-004-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 1-59485-005-4 (hardcover : alk. paper)

1. Backpacking--Utah-Comb Ridge, Navajo Reservation. 2. Pueblo Indians--Antiquities. 3. Comb Ridge (Utah) I. Title.

GV199.44.U8R63 2005

917.92'59--dc22

2005029007

Printed on recycled paper

Authors Note: In this book, I have chosen sometimes to be deliberately vague about the name and location of certain prehistoric ruins and rock art. Such an ethic is by now in long use among writers, photographers, and guides who celebrate the Southwest. A narrative of personal discovery should not serve as a treasure map. The dogged sleuth can find just about any ancient site reported in the literaturebut let her do her own homework.

During the last ten years, there has been a movement afoot to abolish the use of the term Anasazi. The argument is that the appellation, a Navajo word meaning roughly ancient enemies, is offensive to the Puebloans who are the descendants of the so-called Anasazi. The proposed substitute is Ancestral Puebloans, and that designation has increasingly cropped up in the archaeological literature and the popular media.

Yet quite aside from being an awkward mouthful, Ancestral Puebloans imports problems of its ownPuebloan, meaning simply town dweller, being another name given the indigenes by an enemy, in this case the Spanish conquistadors. In recent years, a growing number of archaeologists and writers have resisted the politically-correct tide and gone back to using the term Anasazi. Since its introduction in 1936, the term, as strictly applied to a prehistoric people who flourished across the Southwest before the Spanish entrada of 1540, has been extremely useful, in distinguishing that culture, for instance, from such contemporary neighbors as the Mogollon, Hohokam, and Fremont. And in a new book, Painted by a Distant Hand, Harvards Steven A. LeBlanc, one of the countrys leading Southwesternists, argues aggressively that Anasazi has long been mistranslated. What the term really means, LeBlanc maintains, is ancient othersthat is, people who were not Navajo and who preceded the Navajosan accurate description of reality.

In this book, I follow the practice of LeBlanc and others, employing Anasazi throughout, in preference to Ancestral Puebloans.

On a bend of the Chinle Wash on the Navajo reservation lies one of the largest Anasazi ruins in Utah, replete with a lofty tower wall.

Moqui steps lead into this boulder-top structure above Chinle Wash.

Looking north along the Comb from beyond midway, the end in sight

Ridge upon ridge upon ridge. Looking north over ballooning slickrock humps on Comb Ridge

Cactus points and ancient point poking out of a dune

A weird halo cloud caps the setting sun beside the sacred Navajo peak of Agathla.

David and Vaughn on the Comb, beneath untraversable pinnacles on the crest

A village tucked into an inaccessible cliff ledge, above Chinle Wash

The sun, an upside-down man (perhaps signifying death?), a headless figure, ritualistic objects, and birds ascendingthis petroglyph panel tells a tale, but its meaning is long lost.

A pocket of moisture in a bay of the Comb brought these wildflowers to bloom amid an otherwise arid sandscape.