I Found a Confusing Ancient Structure Hidden in This Cave

On this episode, I've been camping and exploring for the past two days in a remote wilderness of the American Southwest. I have already found some fascinating historical sites and stunning geologic features. Having had a lot of previous experience in the desert, I thought I was ready for whatever I would encounter out here, but what I found on the I'm pretty bushwhacked. If you watched the first video in this series, then you'll know why. If you haven't, I'll put a link in the description below. I've got probably an hour and 15 minutes of daylight left. I've got about five miles back to camp. I think I hiked pretty quick, but I don't think I hiked that fast, so I'll probably be finishing in the dark tonight. I think I remember seeing a little pool of water somewhere up here. I don't remember exactly where, but I'm pretty much out of water, so when I see that, I'm gonna stop, drink a little. All right, back at camp finally. I think I'm gonna grab a quick snack and then it's time to get dinner rolling. Okay, for dinner tonight, we are doing some pesto alfredo pasta. It's one of my favorites. While the water's boiling, if you guys are curious what I put in this, it's super simple. We got pasta, got canned chicken, a little bit of parmesan cheese, pesto. Definitely recommend bringing real pesto out as opposed to one of those packets. And then a little bit of alfredo sauce to give it that creamy saltiness out here. The secret ingredient of them all, some pine nuts that I harvested in Arizona earlier this fall. People have been eating these things for millennia out here. They're so good. Crack the shell like you would a sunflower seed. This is what comes out better than what you can buy in the store for sure. That, my friends, is a welcome meal after a long day. Top it off with some pine nuts and we're good to go. Good morning. That bushwhack last night was not particularly fun. At one point, when it was particularly brushy, there's this plant that grows about chest height. I don't know what it is, but when you brush it, it shoots these seeds into the air and it shot a seed right into my left eye. And I feel like I'm kind of squinting in it. So I've got this like weird, lazy eye today. Now you know why. Okay, let's see. I've been hiking for a while now and I haven't seen anything. And then from the bottom, my eyes spied that. Looks pretty interesting, huh? The problem is it's basically sheer cliffs all along here. And I checked a little further up, same deal. So I'm going to have to go back, I think. And I think I'm going to have to go back some and see if I can find a weakness in the cliff somewhere down there. Looks kind of like a nightmare getting up there, doesn't it? Let's give it a shot. See if we can do it. Worst case is we can't. So it took a lot of work. So I finally found a spot that I think will take us up through the first layer. Beyond that, I don't know. Okay, I think we're making some progress. Got up maybe a couple layers now. So we'll keep moving. I just love walking this slick rock. I should probably clarify that. Slick rock is just a nickname for sandstone out here. There's just something so satisfying about a good foot grip on this stuff. Now, I can't say I love crossing boulder fields like this one, which I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to go up. But you take the good with the bad. All this loose stuff can be dangerous. I try to avoid it as much as possible. Yes, sir, we are making progress. I'm actually starting to think we're going to get there. I definitely had my doubts early on. Okay, we're getting close. I have no idea if we're going to actually be able to access it, but I know I've at least worked my way around enough that it gives us a chance. Wow, there it is, guys. Pretty wild. It looks like kind of the main building there, and then two granaries up top. Wow, I don't know how to get up there. I'm gonna have to take a closer look. Well, of course, access isn't easy. I see two possible ways, neither of which are a gimme, but I'm gonna go scout each of them just with nothing but my body, no pack or anything like that, no camera. And then I'll come back and I'll see what's doable. Okay, we're in business, I think. So this option here is what I think is going to be the best. It's got about four steps of kind of frictiony slab climbing with exposure. That's the heady part. And then from everything I've scouted, I think after that it's pretty cruiser. I'm going to traverse along this ledge, like right along there, and then around the corner. It's really this first part where you've got some like friction slab footwork that you've got to do. I tried to brush off a few areas for good footing. This sandstone actually is pretty solid, and so it gives me confidence. So the narrow sections behind me, now we've got about a foot to work with. So much more comfortable walking. Oh, let's see. I hope I wasn't wrong. I hope I can get up that. Okay, good. This doesn't look bad. I don't know. This might be more of a puzzle than I realized. Just checking how it sounds hollow or how sturdy that might be. Okay, I think we're in business. Man, it just makes you wonder why, you know. Why up here? Obviously, there were things going on that they needed to protect themselves from, but got a lot of respect for them, you know. That's people, I mean, every generation of people has to adapt. That's why we're still around today. So these people just adapted how they had to. What a life it must have been. I don't like the looks of that. Let me go around. Wow, here we are, my friends. That was a journey. Oh, it's a special place. You got to treat them with respect. All right, here's the first structures here. Wow, nice piece of redware pottery. Oh, nice design on that. That's cool. Okay, here's the next structure. Looks like probably a little granary up there. You can see the fibers used in construction here. Okay, here's the second structure coming in. I think this one has been crushed by rockfall. Maybe up here. That's what it seems like. Here's kind of an interesting look at some of the construction. Those white blocks are down at the bottom. That's like the foundation. So there's the back side of what we were just looking at. Here's another kind of interesting, it's like a, it's a circular structure. It's bigger than what I would expect a granary and smaller than what I would expect a kiva to be. Again, it looks like rockfalls probably crushed it. I also don't see as much debris as I would expect to, so I wonder if it was purposely dismantled by the people back in the day and then rebuilt somewhere else. I don't know. So there's the two granaries I saw at the bottom. There's definitely no getting to them from down here. Shear walls maybe 25 feet high, but I do have an idea of how they might have got up there. I'll show you guys when I walk back. There's a lot going on here. Let's take a closer look. Whoa, there's the first rock art I've seen all day. Wow, that is a really beautiful design on that corrugated piece of pottery. I've heard with these corrugated styles that, you know, sometimes the designs were imprinted with various tools and things, but that sometimes fingernails were used. If that's true, I could very well see these being little, you know, little fingernail marks that the potter put in there. Pretty wild to consider. Wow, I've probably been saying wow a lot. This is a big structure here. Sort of square, maybe rectangular in shape, but I'd say a solid like 20 by 20. I'm not going to go in there because I'd have to walk over the walls, but I see, let's see, there's looks like a corn cob. See some broken pottery above it. There's some pictographs. Looks like probably were some handprints there and some kind of a carving here, like a petroglyph. There's a broken mono, it looks like, which is a grinding stone they would have used to grind corn and grains, seeds, things like that. Look at that piece. Here's definitely a, either a projectile point or a knife. It's been broken off down here, but you can definitely tell it's been working to a point here on the edges. The site was a very unique place. It had a particularly lonely feel to it. How the people got water regularly is beyond me. Imagining a daily hike of what I had to do to get here is just mind-boggling. Despite these challenges, there was a lot of evidence this place had been lived in for a substantial amount of time. It had been loved and cared for like any home, and for unknown reasons, the people eventually abandoned it. I'm not crying from emotion, although this is a really interesting and moving site. It's actually getting pretty challenging for me to see out of this left eye, and so it's just like constantly running and making my whole sinuses run, so I probably better make some moves. It's been a great trip. Really glad you guys came along for it. Thanks for watching, guys. Stay tuned for more content. Hit subscribe if you want to keep exploring the southwest with me. Gosh, I can't even say it. You guys know the deal. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.