You could say Jared Berrett is maybe a little crazy. Who else would give up a steady job teaching at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City to move out into the middle of the desert?
Maybe a hermit? But Jared is anything but that. He loves his life, his wife and their eight children above all else. So when he actually spends time alone in the desert, it’s only so he can discover something new that he can share with others.
“Vacationers travelling in Utah, Arizona, Colorado or New Mexico seldom stop at the place where the states meet,” says Jared. “Most drive through the stretch between the wild west backdrop of the Monoment Valleys and the red-brown natural stone bridges of Arches National Park and they miss a lot that way.”
During his time at the university, Jared dealt with the Four Corners district, the intersection of the four rectangular western US states. Between the 8th and 13th centuries, the area was probably the most densely populated region in North America.
“Up to half a million Anasazi lived in the canyons that branched out all over what is now Four Corners,” Jared estimates. “They raised corn, beans and pumpkin and knew how to produce wonder ceramic work.”
Well before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Anasazi left the region, probably because of persistent drought. They left behind historically interesting architectural ruins, most in the form of rock dwellings with adobe additions that fit neatly under overhanging rock. While the large living complexes in Chaco Canyon or in Mesa Verde National Park have long become tourist magnets, the few buildings in Four Corners have only now been coaxed out of their deep slumber.
Jared, who still does some teaching at Utah State University’s Blanding campus, belongs to the few who have made it their vocation to lead tourists through this seldom seen wonder-world. Five jeeps, a Humvee, three RZR buggies and four ATVs are available for hire outside his travel office in Blanding, Utah, where his family runs a small bed and breakfast.
Early mornings begin with high-ground-clearance jeeps bumping their way into the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. A first stop is Newspaper Rock in San Juan county, about 50 km north-west of the city of Monticello.
“Around 2,000 years ago, different Indian tribes carved the first buffaloes, antelopes and human images into this stone,” Jared explains and points to a giant slab containing over 650 petroglyphs. The high number of these rock carvings indicate that at one time humans and animals were numerous here.
Behind the entrance to the national park, the difficult part of the expedition begins. Jared appears to be at his most determined as he attempts to take the jeep up the seemingly insurmountable stone mountain.
Like a caterpiller, the vehicle crawls up and down the steep rock grades, forcing itself through narrow gullies and passing by red-and-white striped stones, spires and natural stone arches.
The view opens to a confluence of the Green and the Colorado Rivers. Again and again, one passes single-storey buildings and grain huts abandoned by the Anasazi. Often the tourists get out and wriggle through narrow clefts in the rock to see the sights.
Still more spectacular are treks south of Canyonlands National Park the next day. Jared leads the way to ruins that are far from modern civilisation. Not a soul is to be seen far and wide. For this beautiful land, realtors might demand high prices. If it were not for one problem. A lack of water.
The dry riverbeds indicate that there used to be springs and rivers here. “There is still water in some of the places today,” says Jared. “We just can’t see it.”
Jared’s daughter Cassidy joins in on the next day. In the middle of the stony area, a gap in the rock appears. Cassidy lets down a climbing rope down into it. The visitors clamber deeper and deeper through a labyrinth of caves and rock gaps until, at the bottom of the Slot Canyon, a water course comes into view. It was created by rain gathered into a rushing stream.
After a few hundred metres, the gap widens slowly into a valley in which plants growing wild are descended from the crops that the Anasazi once raised.
“Researchers estimate that there are still hundreds of still undiscovered settlements from the time of the Anasazi,” says Cassidy at the end of the tour. “The exploration into their history is still at the beginning. Every day out here is an adventure and it is a joy and a privilege to be able to share this adventure with other people.” —DPA