One of our very special places is Bandelier National Monument. We backpacked here for the first time in 1974 and returned nearly every year into the late 80's. As I mentioned before, we celebrated our 50th anniversary with a trip to the area in 2019. We also celebrated our 24th one there during one of our backpacking trips. We were joined by another couple during this 7 day trip. I had packed a small bottle of champagne, a checkered table cloth, and a candle (which was not lit because of fire danger).
The guest list included our friends and one passerby.
One of the places we visited in the back country was called 'Shrine of the Stone Lions'. Two large boulders in the shape of mountain lions lying together front paws outstretched. A 20 foot circle of upright boulders surrounding them. We had visited this shrine many times on our trips and each time there were always many religious offerings: antlers, feathers, personal items. After so many hundreds of years it was nice to know that many of these people retained some of their traditional beliefs.
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| Shrine of the Stone Lions |
And always the petroglyphs. During our first trip to Bandelier we were befriended by a park ranger who told us about a newly discovered site that was not previously documented with a 100 ft. panel of petroglyphs.
One outlier site had an interesting feature. It was described as a 'game drive' site. Either the people drove deer through an opening between two large boulders and would fall in, or maybe the hunters themselves would hide in it and wait for them to come by. Other possibilities could have been an 'eagle blind' or even some sort of defensive devise for protection from invaders.
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| Game drive? |
Your guest would have driven me out of there...but it sure sounds like a special place:)
ReplyDeleteGreat post. Of course, you had to put in a petroglyph.
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