We did our second tour in the morning - at Long House. We were "invaded" by feral horses. The ranger pointed out that these were not the same as wild horses. Wild horses will avoid people. There horses will not and could get nasty (so keep your distance).
Note the burned trees. Much of the top of the mesas were burned (there were signs about each of the major fires over the last 80+ years). The ranger said it will take at least 50 years for the trees to start growing again, because the fires were so hot, that much of the nutrients in the soil is gone.
This ranger was much better. His theme was to think about how it took a community to build a settlement like this - gathering food (farming, hunting, gathering), (stone) tools, water, construction materials, etc. It was a nice way to think about all that it took to exist in a difficult place. He also mentioned that one of the more accepted theories as to why the Ancestral Pueblo people abandoned these sites was that there was a prolonged drought (5 or 6 years) in the 12th century. They just moved on......
We also did a little self-guided tour of the Step House, which is the only large site you can get to without being on a tour.
Then we drove over to the Museum and checked it out. It was very disappointing. It didn't look like it had been updated for 50 years. But we also looked across at the Spruce Tree House village. There was a little trail down to it, but you couldn't go into it anymore.
Link to the next post: 6/9 - To Moab (Arches and Canyonlands)
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