Lomaki ruins, Wupatki National Monument
One thing I love about my book project is the unending list of destinations to explore. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with the amount of work to do, but then I have a day like January 3.
Driving home from our holiday/photographing trip to Phoenix is a day and a half project. Usually I stop in Page, but this time we left late and spent the night in Flagstaff. The next morning we jumped up an hour before sunrise and headed north. I wasn't planning to stop at Wupatki, but just as we got to the northern entrance, the cloud cover pattern started to glow pink. I knew where Lomaki was, I had barely enough time to get there (15 minutes earlier would have helped), and I was throwing on my coat while I ran down the trail.
Sunrise over the San Francisco Mountains at Wupatki NM
Wupatki NM protects an untold number of ruins. I say untold, because the park service isn't putting them on the map, just building roads closed to regular folk. Lomaki is typical of what's accessible. Sinagua or Anasazi, these ruins were abandoned about 800 years ago. The nearby Sunset Crater volcano erupted before 1100 AD, and the ash enriched the agricultural fields for the Wupatki farmers. Like other great pueblo ruins of the era, no one really knows why they were abandoned. Wupatki sits on a windswept plateau between the western edge of the painted desert and the San Francisco Peaks. When the wind blows, it feels ancient and eternal.
