Automatic Cattle Roundup
A You Tube video on a roundup of a few of his cattle. A
visit to
Sandal
House an ancient ruin in the Ute Mountain Tribal Park near Mesa Verde,
Colorado. A
video of Jim and Marie in a balloon crash into trees Kenya, Africa.
Balloon Crash
The Decalogue Stone sits below a 700 foot cliff at the base of Hidden
Mountain. Marie and I climbed up in a V shaped extremely steep wash to get
to the top. The mountain is nearly flat on top with a 360 deg view in any
direction. The boulders and cliff tops are littered with petroglyphs and
collapsed rock ruins. We hiked a full circle of the top which is about a
mile long and a half mile wide. We found a Greek inscription on a
basalt boulder and more ruins and saw a Phoenician Tanit symbol just below the
cliff face on the north side. There were between 20 and 30 abandoned ruins
which were obviously not of the Ancestral Puebloen style. I wonder
if they were of Jewish or Phoenician origin?
On a recent climb to view several of the 1800 Petroglyphs on Tome Hill I
think I saw a Phoenician
Tanit symbol. I reviewed several of my photos
taken on a recent climb and think one of them reveals a Phoenician Tanit symbol
but will have to make another climb to be absolutely certain. It's not
much of a stretch to think that the Phoenicians could have traveled from Hidden
Mountain to Tome Hill a couple of thousand years ago. This of course is
valid only if the Hidden Mountain Decalogue Stone and the Tanit symbols are not
a hoax.
The Centennial State
Mesa Verde
The date was December 18, 1888 when
Richard Wetherill,
his brother-in-law Charles Mason and Acowitz, a Ute tribe member were riding
across the mesa tops of the Mesa Verde looking for stray cattle. They saw across
a canyon what Richard later called "Cliff Palace". Richard and Charles stopped
looking for stray cattle, crossed the canyon and lowered themselves into the
ruins of the city and explored for several hours. They agreed to separate and
look for more ruins and agreed to meet back at the place they had first seen
Cliff Palace. Richard returned that evening and reported he had found another
ruin he called Spruce Tree House. For Richard, this was a turning point in his
life. He began exploration activities in Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico.
Ute Mountain Tribal Park
The Wetherill family gathered at the Ute Mountain Tribal Park
June 30, 2006 to view sites visited by the Wetherills
between 1888 and 1890. The group included the author of "The Wetherills: Friends
of Mesa Verde", Fred Blackburn and Harvey Leake the great grandson of John
Wetherill and co-author of Wolfkiller, the remarkable life story of a Navajo
herdsman and plant-gatherer who lived in the Monument Valley region of Navajo
country, along the Utah/Arizona border, from about 1855 until 1926.. Harvey is
also the author of many articles written about the Wetherill brothers in the
late 1800's. The sites visited included Eagles Nest, Tree House, She House,
Morris Five and Inaccessible House all within north and south Lion Canyon.
The site was burned in the 2000 fires that devastated the Mesa Verde area. The
fire was so hot the ground was sterilized killing everything in its path
including seeds, with no vegetation reestablishing itself to date. The picture
of the Wetherills traveling across the many cliffs and boulders was still devoid
of plant life. On July 20th of 2006 a few weeks after the Wetherill gathering
another fire struck Johnson Canyon called the Weber fire which burned more trees
over several hundred acres. A terrible tragedy considering the natural beauty of
the area.
The group included Marie Garcia Shaffner, James Wetherill Shaffner, Jocelyn
Shaffner, Jarryn Shaffner, Celia Wetherill, Gay Wetherill, Kathleen Watson
Johnson, Keith Johnson, Trevor Johnson, Jenifer Johnson, Terresa Watson,
Sarah Fine, Marc Borge, Harvey Leake, Fred Blackburn, Jeanette Gomes Watson,
Jake Dance (Driver) and Marshal Deer (Guide)
Shaffners in Colorado on a trip to Sandal House in the
Ute Mountain Tribal Park Cortez, Colorado. The park is behind the cliff
dwellings of the Mesa Verde National Park and must be guided by a Ute Tribal
member to gain Access. A collection of artifacts was made here in about 1889
by the Wetherills and sent to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in
1893. Our group included the two authors Fred Blackburn and Robert Sanchez.
Robert is a writer for the 5280 Denver's Magazine. Robert is writing an article about Richard Wetherill. Marie Garcia Shaffner took photos
and ran the movie camera. Click
here for a photo album of the event.
