Sun Calendars Tour-Ute Mountain Tribal Park

The Sun Calendar Tour in Ute Mountain Tribal Park is a special tour of the Mancos Canyon area and is usually offered in late May. The tour starts at the main park entrance, south of Cortez in southwest Colorado. The tour focuses on special petroglyphs in the Mancos Canyon area. Most of these sites are near the sites that are visited on the regular tours.

The first stop is an isolated boulder not far from the park entrance. There is a four ring spiral on the south side, but it is the odd arrangement of the boulders that make this a sun observation site. From this point, the point where the sun rises and sets along the canyon rim through the year can be noted.

On the north side of the boulder there is a panel that includes several animal related figures. The tour included a stop at the Red Pottery Village, a stop that is also in the regular tours. The Red Pottery Village has several large rubble pile ruins sites and a tremendous amount of artifacts visible on the surface. This village may have been the center of the Mancos Canyon community at one point.
 

The Many Cliffs area is usually on the regular tour and has some small ruins sites and a petroglyph and pictograph panel. The Sun Calendar image of interest is to the left of the lower small ruins site on a triangular wedge of stone. There is a five ring spiral above a grid, with five tick marks below the grid. On the winter solstice, the moving shadow aligns with each ring and tick mark. The grid is thought to represent the farming fields.

The next site has the largest spiral that has been found in this area. The importance of these sun calendars is that the growing season here is barely long enough for the corn crop. The ideal planting time is a short time before the summer solstice. Planting too early could lead to failure due to a late spring freeze.

The winter solstice is a time for ceremonies. Much of the religious activity is thought to relate to rainfall and the planting and fertility of the crops. The area around the large spiral has other rock art and small ruins.

 The highlight of the sun calendar tour is the Butterfly site. A pointy rock directs a shadow across two side by side panels. The left panel is thought to represent the creation story and the right panel the emergence story.

The figures on the left include the spider, a spiral for the sun, the God of Land, thunder clouds, and a Kokopelli. These figures are symbolically touching. The thunder cloud image resembles a butterfly at first glance, but has five tick marks at the bottom, similar to the grid figure we saw earlier.
 

The symbols on the right are thought to represent the moon, the Evening Star i.e. planet Venus, several human figures, and the man made groove represents the place of emergence. Further to the right is a hole in the rock thought to represent the Sipapu connection with the earth that is also seen in some kivas. This panel could be 1500 years old, suggesting that these religious ideas have been constant for centuries.

The final stop was at Kiva Point, one of the regular tour stops. There is a short trail here. The trail visits several petroglyph panels, overlooks a great kiva, and there is a large display of pottery shards and other artifacts. Kiva Point is one of the most important areas in Mancos Canyon. The Sun Calendar tour focused on one of the petroglyph images that included many small dots. There is a pattern in these dots that suggests that this might be a yearly calendar, representing 365 days.

The tour I was on started at 9:00 AM and returned at 1:10 PM. The cost was $29 dollars and included transportation into Mancos Canyon.