This time, after the long drive back in, we forked off to the right out to the Wetherill Mesa for the 2 1/2 mile Ranger led hike to the Long House. As we got on the new road, we noticed signs for weight restrictions and length. We were over for weight but pretended we didn't know. When we saw the narrow road with hair pin curves and sharp drop offs with no guard rails, we understood. I don't think holding my breath helped, but I did it any way. The views were incredible and one of the signs said on a good day, you could see as far as 160 miles.
27 miles of winding and we got to the windswept station at the top where we were to meet up with the Ranger. We had plenty of time to sit at a picnic table and have our lunch.
There was a self guided tour with a one hour loop to Step House. Bob talked to people who said if you walked briskly, and didn't hang out down there, you could do it a lot quicker. Being the way we are and not wanting to miss anything, we stuffed down our sandwiches and hit the trail. It was very pretty and fun. We had seen lots of piles of dry horse manure and thought maybe it was trail riders, but found out there are wild horses all over the park. We never saw any but sure kept an eye out.
We quickly checked out the Step House ruins and started back up the other side of the trail. I was nervous about being late.
We did just fine, but it was not good conditions for hurrying with the heat of the full sun and the very thin air. It felt good to sit in the shade and recover while we waited for the tour to start.
We were most fortunate to have, Beth as our Ranger. She was so knowledgable, a natural teacher and a great story teller.
We stopped often on the way down the path as she explained how the early people lived with activities and religion and how they made use of all of their surroundings. She talked about what they ate and showed us edible plants and told us about the wild game they hunted. They also kept turkeys and had pet dogs. She left us each time to walk the next section with something to wonder about. She was pretty cool.
Some of the places on our hike were a little scary with the path being quite narrow with very sharp, long drops down. I wouldn't want to stumble.
We had to climb two ladders up to a meeting room where we all sat on rocks while Beth told us things about the structures.
It was so interesting. She told us to picture the night with a fire blazing and the bright stars and the foot drums built into the floors and the people dancing. She made it magical.
We took our time hiking back up the steep trail, but we all did fine.
Bob and I were worried that we had a long trip back to our trailer and it would be seven hours that we had left Ben inside by the time we got back. We hadn't left him that long before in the trailer and we knew he would get nervous. He was fine, but most happy to see us.
We had another lovely crock pot dinner with a roast, potatoes and carrots before tucking our stiff bodies in under a pile of blankets as the night temperature was going down to 39 degrees. Tomorrow we head out.
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