Lowry Pueblo

Author's Comments

The drive in tells you what this place is going to be. County Road CC runs straight out across the sagebrush west of Pleasant View, and there is a long stretch where you wonder if you have the directions right, and then the pueblo appears in the middle of nothing. No gate. No ranger. No line of cars. Just the ruin sitting on the open plain the way it has sat for nearly a thousand years. I came in late September at the back end of golden hour, and the light did the work. The walls of the great house go warm in that final hour before sunset, and the long shadows of the masonry pull the whole structure into relief. Forty rooms, eight kivas, all of it built between 1060 and 1150 by people whose descendants still live in this country. The great kiva is the thing I was not prepared for. You descend a few steps and the original painted plaster is still there on the walls, faint but unmistakable, and the silence inside is different than the silence outside. I had the site to myself for almost two hours. A single truck passed on the county road in that time. The interpretive guide at the trailhead is worth picking up, but I would also say this is a place to walk slowly and not photograph too quickly. The wide shots are obvious. The details take longer to find. Look for the way the doorways frame the sage and the distant Sleeping Ute, and wait for the light to drop another notch before you commit. Bring water. Bring more time than you think you need.

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