I Found an Ancient Fortress in the American Southwest

Good thing I'm not claustrophobic. Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in. We're going to start this video just rolling ASAP because I am hauling butt to get into an area that I really want to explore some more and I want to show you guys. And so I'm talking while I hike. You know this is an area I've been in before but it's so rich in history and archaeology that every time I come in I end up finding something new and that's what's so cool about it. You can come in here probably for a lifetime and still find things you hadn't seen before or go to places that you'd seen but you just didn't have the time to get to. Whew, man that was some work. Finally down on the canyon bottom. I think I'm going to take a quick pause, grab a little water, maybe put a little sunscreen on. I don't want to be looking like one of those ancient ruins when I'm 50. Aha, finally, this is what I wanted to show you guys. I've passed by this ruin before but I've never given it a proper exploration so let's go check it out. As is the case with a lot of them, you can never approach it just going straight up. That's just a sheer wall so you've got to come in from either side. First thing I noticed are these petroglyphs right here. Petroglyphs are when they're packed into the rock. A pictograph is painted. Those are old. Okay, just below it now. Okay, wow. It's been blackened up under here from fires. Check out this. Wow. Oh and there's handprints. Ancient corn cob. It's crazy how long things last out here in the desert. There's a bunch more up under here too. Really cool door construction here. You can see all these rods here. Check this out, the back side. You can really see how they just connected all of these sticks via this like twine up here and then covered it with plaster. So amazing that this stuff is still here. So yeah, this is the outside of that same wall we just looked at. You can just see where some of the plaster is breaking down. You can see the wood on the inside. A little more corn up in here. This is maybe my favorite little thing here. I don't know. It's hard. Let me get back so you guys can potentially see it. So just a little shelf. You know, it's just like such a human touch of, yeah, you need a shelf to set things. There's another room, another storage unit up there. There's a great example of fingerprints up in the mortar as they would have pushed it up into the area between the wall and the ceiling. Runs all along here. So moving along, sorry the sun is a bit harsh, I know. That is cool. Look at that little window there. So that actually looks into that granary that was inside of the main structure. Then a little, it's probably for venting, I would guess. When they would build structures, I mean, they were not stupid. They understood that if you had a fire in an enclosed space, you would choke yourself out pretty quickly. So they figured out how to vent these things and bring fresh air in and take the smoke out. So I've been so engrossed with everything down here that I almost forgot about all this up here until I took a step back. Wow, that is crazy. Look at that thing. It's kind of creepy. I wonder how they got up there. It's like a fortress up there. And so this was, I walked down to see if you get up that, but definitely not. Although I will say that's a short enough distance. They could have definitely had a ladder that potentially got them up there. And then maybe you could walk along that ledge to get over there. I wonder, is that the only way via ladder? The ledge system runs along there and around the corner where I see some other masonry wall there. So I'm going to follow around. I'm going to go up over around that corner and see if that is potentially a way to get up top. Oh, look at that. Huh. Some more petroglyphs. What is that thing? Wow. So this is where that ledge finishes. And that's that other little masonry wall that I saw. It looks, well, it looks tight, but it does look possible to crawl through there and then around the corner. I think I'm going to definitely have to leave the backpack. I mean, that's like, better not take too full of a breath or I'm not fitting through there. So I think leave the backpack, probably just bring my phone and maybe my little like 360 degree camera and leave the big, big camera back. If you notice a loss of audio quality, that's why. But yeah, let's, let's go see if I can crawl through that. Good thing I'm not claustrophobic. So here's a little structure. If I didn't feel like I could shimmy through this without touching that, then I wouldn't do this because I would never want to put pressure on an ancient structure. So I've read that the ancestral Pueblo, when they were living in this, you know, really defensive time period, they would build these defensive walls that would block off some of the approaches to sites or perhaps they just put that there to slow down anybody. And then they could just be standing on the other side, you know, with the spear. And I mean, I'm pretty, I'm pretty unable to fight right now if I was an enemy that was trying to come in here. This is crazy. This is so wild. Excuse the sounds of pain. This rock is not the most friendly on your knees. So I'm out of the, the biggest squeeze. But ooh, that looks, it's a little dicey getting over there. That's, that's what I just came through. And there's that wall, man. There's the bottom below me. I don't know, maybe, maybe 30, 35 feet, something like that. So it kind of widened up enough. I can hands and knees it. But this next section, hold cow, that looks tight. Because if I go too far to the right, over the edge, I'm going. Yeah, I think this would definitely deter any attack from an enemy. Good thing I wore the old clothes today. Forgive the grunts. This is actually pretty hard. Look at that. Wow. Oh, cow. This is insane. And this is like a full on ancient fortress. There's no way you would live up here. There's no signs that that's what this was used for. Wow. Yeah, ancient fortress indeed. I mean, look at those. There's these like ports where you can look. You have like a sweeping view of the valley and all the approaches. There's these little portal windows that look out in every direction. This was clearly defensive. Look what's right above me. Wow. That is creepy. I don't know if that's supposed to intimidate or if that's some kind of a clan symbol. I don't know. Here's the end down here. I don't know if that's always been the end or if that's just the rest has fallen down over time. Here's the ledge. So down beneath here is where the main ruin was, the main site. Wow. So check out some of these pictographs here. So up here, I am able to stand finally. You know, most of that I'm crouched down. Now granted, I'm a lot taller than they would have been back then. But this is the only sort of small space that I can stand in. Wow. Amazingly bizarre. You never touch any petroglyph or pictograph. The oils from our hands can damage them. Also notice there's like five red lines here. Again, I have no idea what that means. So feel free to drop comments if you've got ideas. I mean, I've seen plenty of defensive structures and things like that out here in the southwest, but I mean, that was just, yeah, I mean, that was like another level of defensive. I mean, almost like what I'd call paranoid. You know, how many of those little window ports so that they could have seen, you know, every direction. You know, maybe they had like just sort of the last-ditch supplies up there. And then in the case of emergency, they would probably climb a ladder up there and then pull the ladder up and then just, I guess, just fight it out till the end. I don't really know or fight it out till the enemy left. Man, if those walls could talk, I would be so curious. If you guys are enjoying exploring the southwest with me, hit subscribe, give this video a like. Thanks for coming along. I mean, that was quite a saga. I hope you enjoyed it. Drop a comment below. I'll see y'all next time.