Wupatki Pueblo

Wupatki Pueblo

I was born in the early sixties and have lived in Phoenix my whole life. I love Arizona! No, I don’t love the heat. It is hard to endure as I get older. And as it becomes hotter, earlier in the year and stays miserable later, my window for getting out, even in the elevation is limited. I try to push it however my heat intolerance is accumulating and restrictive. This weekend I pushed through and the resulting photos and story is a product of that effort. 

I’ve driven by Wupatki for as long as I can remember. The typical thought as I saw the signs going north by Sunset Crater and downhill as you descend from the elevation of the San Francisco peaks, the sign alone, “Wupatki”was a mystery to me.

As my interest in the history of the indigenous peoples of Arizona increased, I began to pay much more attention to the signs on the road, Tuzigoot, Montezuma Well, Montezuma Castle and Walnut Canyon, I’ve been to all as a child, taken there by my Grandparents in the sixties. But I don’t remember much about the stops, I was a child and only  interested in child things. As an adult of grandparent age now I’m going. It appears to be an age related interest. 

The Pueblos of Wupatki are always mentioned in the conversations with my peers of similar interests and the latest as I listened to a presenter at the Arizona Archaeological Society. He centered his discussion on the eruption of Sunset Crater and the effects on the indigenous peoples of the area, particularly Wupatki. That recent presentation persisted in my memory as I toured the Pueblos and the area of Sunset Crater. My own experiences in the cinder cones of Northern Arizona spiced my recollection as I created my old man’s adventure today.

The cinder cone field near Sunset Crator and Wupatki

Today, August 1, 2026 was my first visit and the day I began to chronicle the tour. Needless to say, it was hot. The air conditioning on the drive was working hard and it was just nine a.m. Already the temperature outside was 96 degrees indicated on the dash of my Subaru. As I clipped along heading east off the 89a, the cinder cones that proliferate the area were already familiar. Just a couple of dozen miles further east and south are the cinder cones of Merrium and Sheba Craters where I learned to circle high into the sky. I learned how to climb in the strong lifting air sometimes picking up dust in a whorl, tracing a tube to the sky, sort of surreal, I rode those elevators skyward. The header picture above is another cinder cone field just down the Interstate. As I served in the 25 infantry in Hawaii, the same type cinder cones were my area of operations on the slope of Mauna Kea hence my attraction to remembrances of this type of geological condition. I’ve been recreating and working in this type of environment my whole life.

Already having knowledge of the particular Hopi Katsina, Nuvak, the G~d of snows above the prominent mountain massif of Northern Arizona, I had painted Nuvak on my snow surfboard in the late seventies, just a few years before I learned to fly. I knew of the eagle winged Katsina, I knew many of the Katsina as they were part of my interest early on as I recreated in the area.

My snow surfboard from 1979 and surfing the slope just below Agassiz Peak in the San Francisco massif.

The road to the Wupatki Pueblos is more than a few miles long. I had the stereo blasting live music from my youth. Many of the musicians were dead from this or that. Many of my hang gliding friends were gone too and so were the individuals and their communities were too that had built these dwellings making their home the the high desert. The cycle of life becomes a fixture that runs through everything I think about these days. My own mortality comes to play, “how do I want to spend my time?”

The people that lived here long ago, how did they do it? I’m zipping along a blacktop road at about fifty, the park roads although long and visibility is good is a toned down speed limit. I don’t mind, it serves to slow my mind and it gives me pause to think.

  

There is a sign for Lomatki Pueblo. The road is a big loop and the Pueblos are on spurs off the road. I slow down and turn in driving the length of the spur to the parking lot, no one home, I am alone. I am a photographer on a mission. Instantly as I exit the cool chill of the cabin of my Forester, the high desert heat envelopes me, the harsh UV rays piercing all exposed skin. I don my face covering and pull on my white hat. I had sewn the symbol from Ash Ketchums hat, the original Pokémon master, in a play on my visiting the different Tapamveni or individual unique petroglyphs, “I’ve got to catch them all” is my theme. Most of you won’t understand this but I have kids that are now grown men. All of them played Pokémon growing up, they still do at times and I got them into it by supporting their interests.

Although I’m presenting my photography in a detailed collection, I’m not classically educated in the archeology of my area, I’m an amateur and this is my home page. I’m not writing this for you, this is my world. I’m doing it for me or my family, for something to do, for an investment in my art, my craft exemplified in the idea. I’m also a painter and I want my head filled with the things of my life here in Arizona so I can have an idea to create a style. I’ve exemplified this in my page on the Idea. If you are interested you can read it in that link.

The heat is on, it’s time to get it done and I open the door and begin to ready two of the three cameras I chose for today’s outing. The exquisite Nikon F6 loaded with Kodak E-100 slide film. I choose a 24-120 zoom lens for the F6 and I place it in my musette bag and ready the DSLR, the D780, both are Nikon cameras. I choose an ultra wide zoom for the digital camera, a 16-35 and I drink the rest of my water. I have a two and a half gallon Jerry can in the back if I need but that is for when I’ve really screwed up or something. You can’t live without water in the desert. Even the sign that leads to the Pueblo tilts at you, the visitor to bring your water.

       

 

   

I make the short walk listening to my music turned up high. The headphones I’m wearing have a transparent mode where as they tone down the volume if they hear something I need to hear on the outside. AN external mic always listening so you can hear amplified outside noises, voices, whatever. A photographer friend of mine warning me not to wear them, “”how are you going to hear the buzzworms?” I probably won’t, I’ll stay on the cleared path and hopefully use the alpha sense, vision first. I have learned not to traipse across the desert willy nilly least I walk into said buzzworm.

But I’m not thinking of this as I walk, I’m in the zone there, taking in the scene, figuring out where the water comes from, where the food is, how the different peoples of the area survived this environment. I begin to take pictures and walk through the ruin. Always scanning for the art, the black basalt rocks up on the ridge, that’s where the Pokémon Tapamveni are but I’m not going to expend the little bit of energy I have chasing them. Yesterday I toured Montezuma's Well. It’s lower in elevation and hotter. A couple of nights before I had been taking pictures of the moon, it was full, bright and I had configured the camera to capture those images. I had just fucked up a whole shoot having made a completely rookie mistake in not paying attention in the heat of mid day. I had water but not enough, I got overheated and my stamina was already low from pushing through that.

The checklist complete this time yet the ever present heat, weighing heavily on all my decisions. It was then I knew that this was going to be a sampling foray. I’m going to have to come back when it’s cooler to document the rock art of the area, today I’m hitting the high points. I make a mental note to check the ridgeline at a later date. Typically I’ll take one of my long lenses and let it reach out like a sniper, finding its target from a distance. Those lenses are heavy and already my bag is heavy and my hands are full. My cup is full, too much on my plate and it’s too hot today…

Lomatki Pueblo

I check the back screen on the D780, the pictures are fine, no rookie mistakes today. The film camera is a different experience. I slow way down with a film camera. Each press of the shutter release is about two dollars and two weeks time before I get the results back. I’ll layer those in after development and scans are sent to me.

Up ahead I spot a ruin on a hilltop. I pull over and grab the digital camera and snap two shots. Again my petroglyph eyes see places where I would place if I were living then. Note to self, the Citadel ruin has potential for rock art. This page is my notes, I’ll look at it before I go back to check to see what I missed and what I want to accomplish next time.

The Citadel Pueblo

Back on the road I realize how thirsty I am. I’m hoping the visitor center has water. The park is huge, it’s many miles of driving between Pueblos. You know that the people of the area didn’t make quick decisions to go to another settlement, the distances were enough that they had to prepare or did they? 

  

The Wupatki Visitor center essentially explained it for me. The people of the Pueblo would make clay pots and fill them with water, stacking them in the shade of their structures. This region is arid, the high desert is brutally dry with very low single digit humidity much of the time. Volcanic in nature, there are very few streams in the area and those that do run year round are few. The Colorado River is a short drive north. Unless you haven’t been paying attention, the watershed is in a decades long drought. The river that carved the Grand Canyon is in a declining flow era. The Little Colorado emanating from its headwaters on the White Mountain Apache Reservation crosses near Wupatki through the Painted Desert. Those two waterways are another playground of mine. I’ll tell that story sometime soon as I write about my experiences in and around the Petrified Forest just east of Wupatki.

          

The rangers at the visitor center are helpful. Do I look like a photographer amateur archeologist? What do they look like? I’m wearing a white hat, a scarf, a light long sleeve button up shirt, shorts and Nike shoes. I going to make myself a six P note. Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance, a reminder list to perform at a high level. I am familiar with this process as it kept me alive during decades of cross country hang gliding in strong conditions. I’m going to make PPPPPP a priority. I’ll generate a page detailing the process and post it here at my blog.

Right now I’m licking my wounds, my hands are sunburned from forgetting my gloves, I’m a little shaky as I should have brought my cooler and filled it with ice and water bottles. I need to take better care of myself. At sixty five and maybe less than a decade of doing this left, I want to do it in good style, this is the last quarter of the game, I don’t want to decline, I want to finish strong. It’s Sunday the next day, I’m laying on the couch pecking this story out on my iPad. I’m going to land now, I have film to take in for development and scanning. I’m almost cooled off from my walk with Lucy. It’s already near 100 degrees. I live in the Sonoran Desert, I’m getting old and it’s ok. I’ve lived an adventurous life here, I’m content right where I’m at. I have added in the film scans, can you tell the difference? Soon I’ll move forward with my PPPPPP and head North to fill the pots and stack them here.