Desert Lore: Visiting an Ancient Pueblo at Night

[00:00:00]In this episode, I'm taking you along to visit one of my favorite archaeological sites. I haven't done a video on the site yet, [music] and this does not count because I'm going to visit the site at night and do some astral photography.

[00:00:13]Uh, I wanted you get a look at what this place looks like in the daytime with these [music] shots, so you get a better idea of where we're going. So, come along with me and enjoy the night of the 4th of July 2026 getting some astral photography shots of the Milky Way at this beautiful site.

[00:00:30]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Hello, everybody.

[00:02:00]Ben Woodard here and this is going to be a very very different video tonight. I'm taking you along on a unique adventure.

[00:02:07]So the site we're going to we're visiting an ancient granary. I'm not going to mention the name even though everybody knows the name.

[00:02:14]Uh but again, I usually try not to say the names of these places just because it lowers the risk. It's easy to find out and if you make the effort to find out where this place is then you're probably somebody who's going to have respect and not vandalize this place.

[00:02:28]This is actually a granary to another ancient site and this in the daytime is beautiful. I'm going to show you some footage in the daytime. It literally looks breathtaking and actually looks this way. But a few years ago I went here 4th of July weekend, which is what it is tonight.

[00:02:47]And there was so much wildlife. I wanted to do some astrophotography, which we're set up to do. Want to get do some really cool night photography of the site.

[00:02:55]And my thinking is I want to capture all the wildlife. I've got kind of a bucket list here. We saw so many things when we were here last time. We saw jackrabbits, cottontail rabbits, we saw um these giant critters that are called um Jerusalem crickets.

[00:03:12]We saw these giant clusters of daddy longlegs, we saw rattlesnakes, we saw frogs, we saw toads. There was so much life in here and the um these the uh Jerusalem crickets, they're not they're not a cricket. They're these huge things. They're these enormous things.

[00:03:26]There was I usually I might see one of them a year.

[00:03:29]We saw hundreds of them. And so my hope is that tonight we're going to catch this and not getting eaten alive by mosquitoes as they land on my forehead.

[00:03:38]But the hope is we're going to see some really cool life and that we're going to experience an archaeological site in an incredibly unique way. So this is requiring filming this and getting there in the night and then doing some legitimate astrophotography and night photography on the site. So, it takes a little extra planning. But, I appreciate you coming along and I hope you enjoy this very unique visit to an archaeological site on the 4th of July.

[00:04:11]You can hear the crickets.

[00:04:14]This is just a big old wash.

[00:04:17]Oh, wow. You can even see stars and planets. I like this camera.

[00:04:20]Wow.

[00:04:22]I'm surprised it's getting any of the sky. That's impressive.

[00:04:26]It's actually legitimately impressive.

[00:04:30]>> [cough and clears throat] >> So, I've never done filming like this at night while I'm walking along.

[00:04:46]So, I'll do the best I can to do this in a way that you get a feel for this whole experience.

[00:04:56]Not easy, but we'll give it a try.

[00:05:27]This big old boulder here. We're going past these areas. This was water before.

[00:05:32]This is so dry.

[00:05:35]We're in a wash.

[00:05:38]But, there's crickets.

[00:05:42]There's a lot of little bugs, little spiders.

[00:05:45]But, it is so dry.

[00:05:49]I don't know if we're going to see all the life that I've seen here in years past.

[00:05:58]But, the sky is beautiful.

[00:06:01]Up ahead here, you can see the ripples in the sandstone.

[00:06:08]>> [snorts] >> It's a pretty cool place.

[00:06:11]But, this whole wash I don't know how well you can see that how well it's picking up.

[00:06:18]But, you get flash floods that come through here and just wash this whole thing out.

[00:06:25]But, not this year.

[00:06:28]>> [snorts] >> Uh it's pretty crazy.

[00:06:30]We're not seeing as much There's a lot of bug life, which is actually really healthy for this ecosystem. We're seeing a lot of bats.

[00:06:37]We're seeing a lot of uh small insects.

[00:06:40]The daddy longlegs we're seeing are not clumping together, but there is no moisture whatsoever. There's normally this time of year little pockets when we're coming along here cuz it is a wash and so anytime you have rain, you have these little pockets and they are not filling at all. There's nothing. So, it's um very dry and hopefully when it cools off a little bit more on this hike, hopefully we're going to see some more critters. We're hearing a lot of animals up on the sides. They sound more like mammals, maybe things like size of a raccoon or a skunk or even a ringtail.

[00:07:13]Uh I would love to see a ringtail.

[00:07:16]A lot of moths and again, lots and lots of bats. But, the interesting thing about the desert is it is feast or famine. It is constantly shifting and there'll be the anytime there's water, you'll have things frogs and toads that have been hibernating underground in the dry for years. They hit that water, they come alive, they reproduce, and then they lay their eggs, and go back to being dormant. And they might might that way for years. There's spiders like that. There's all kinds of animals that'll do that, that will hibernate for years and then come out with an explosion. And so you never know from year to year and from month to month what life you're going to see and that is just the nature of the desert, which is a testament to the people who lived in these environments. Hopefully hopefully you you can see me. That looks really weird. I Hopefully I don't look too freaky.

[00:08:06]I look like a Muppet.

[00:08:07]But so the the people who survived in the desert had to be able to adapt and adapt very very well uh because you never know what you're going to have to use as a food source if it's feast or famine.

[00:08:20]I don't normally use bug spray ever.

[00:08:24]I don't like pesticides.

[00:08:27]But this time I made an exception and I'm glad I did.

[00:08:32]This is the greatest number of bugs that I've ever seen here and yet it's as dry as it's ever been.

[00:08:40]Look at that one tree.

[00:08:42]It's that lone tree up top there.

[00:08:45]It's kind of cool. Big old giant boulder.

[00:08:49]Some yucca.

[00:08:52]This stuff is really good for making rope and making sandals making baskets, all different kinds of things.

[00:09:02]It's cool that boulder just washed down the wash.

[00:09:13]But no rattlesnakes yet.

[00:09:17]Hope that changes.

[00:09:24]So checking all this area out we keep getting hit with extreme hot and extreme cold.

[00:09:33]Once it hits sunset you start to have uh the cold air starts to drop and it flows down the canyon and get these nice cooling air.

[00:09:45]But then that passes through and you get hit nearly 100° temperatures.

[00:09:52]So you keep going from cold to sweating to cold to sweating.

[00:09:56]And that's what you get for coming just after dark in the desert.

[00:10:01]It's right here.

[00:10:03]I can see there's a bunch of daddy longlegs.

[00:10:06]On the way back down where I can I don't know if you can see them running.

[00:10:09]>> [snorts] >> They're not clumping together, but they might in a bit. Oh, there's a bunch. See there's another one right there.

[00:10:16]And there's another one I'm coming right on my feet.

[00:10:18]There's tons of these. We're out early enough they might clump together on the way back down.

[00:10:25]But this right here, all of this this is a deep crevice that normally has water trapped in it.

[00:10:33]And there's just absolutely nothing.

[00:10:36]There should be frogs and toads chirping up a storm.

[00:10:41]And one of the biggest water sections is right here.

[00:10:47]We'll see.

[00:10:49]There's nothing.

[00:10:51]Wow.

[00:10:53]There's daddy longlegs crawling everywhere.

[00:10:57]But I just wanted to show a clump of Yeah, normally this is so There's another one. I don't know I've got the fish eye lens on. I don't know if you can see it. There's just tons of daddy longlegs everywhere. But again, they clump together and any humidity coming down this wash at night it it condenses on their body and they help it absorb it. So it helps them. It really helps them out.

[00:11:22]But yeah, this whole crack right here this is just uh this is crazy.

[00:11:28]It's crazy dry.

[00:11:30]Yeah, jeez.

[00:11:32]There's tiny little legs everywhere.

[00:11:37]Well, it's hard to film, especially when you got the fisheye lens on.

[00:11:45]Cuz you have the water just comes down the wash and just pools in here.

[00:11:51]This we're stepping in what is normally a pool.

[00:11:55]And this is the pocket.

[00:11:57]Hopefully you can see the tiny little legs running around inside.

[00:12:02]>> [snorts] >> There are frogs and toads buried under this sand right here.

[00:12:10]And you can see where it comes down.

[00:12:12]It's really kind of cool.

[00:12:14]Just the water comes down a little mini waterfall when it rains.

[00:12:17]But normally this traps water and if we started digging around, we would definitely see hibernating frogs in this right here. Instead, there's just a bunch of fire ants and a bunch of tiny little legs around this cool mini waterfall right here.

[00:12:38]A dry wash.

[00:12:40]A desert living up to its name. Take a look at these tracks.

[00:12:44]I don't know if you can see this line going right across here.

[00:12:50]This is a lizard.

[00:12:52]You can see him running.

[00:12:54]Ding ding ding ding ding ding. There's little legs on the side.

[00:12:59]It's cool trackway.

[00:13:02]Just going off into the sides there.

[00:13:05]There's so many tracks through here.

[00:13:07]There's human tracks and there's all kinds of animal tracks, but that's kind of cool to see such prominent big chunky lizard dragging his tail.

[00:13:18]It's cool to see.

[00:13:22]And we carry on. I think we're just about here.

[00:13:26]Cuz remember being under this alcove and somebody painted it or carved a modern petroglyph.

[00:13:36]Yeah, there's a fake handprint over there.

[00:13:39]People did some modern work here, but I remember being under this alcove in the middle of a rainstorm and there's a threat of a fresh flash flood which means I think we're right up underneath here.

[00:13:55]Think that right in front of us is where we're going to go.

[00:14:03]Yeah, yeah, that looks like it. Yeah.

[00:14:08]Kind of different at night.

[00:14:12]This site is so cool.

[00:14:16]In the daytime this thing looks like it's absolutely on fire.

[00:14:26]You can see part of the adobe there.

[00:14:30]God, this is cool.

[00:14:32]This is surreal at night.

[00:14:39]Climbing into an ancient archaeological site at night.

[00:14:49]Okay, so I'm up here now.

[00:14:52]It's a really cool site.

[00:14:54]We'll check it out in just a second.

[00:14:55]We're going to go through and film it. But, um again when you have a site like this don't go inside. Uh don't enter it. It's very delicate. You can poke poke a poke a camera in or whatever. Um but you don't want to physically go inside because it can damage the structure.

[00:15:16]But, you can see this is a very cool site.

[00:15:21]This looks a lot bigger in photos.

[00:15:23]Uh but this is actually an ancient granary. And so there the Pueblo and it's about a mile away. So this is where corn was stored probably in times like this when it was incredibly dry and really hard to Woah.

[00:15:39]Pickle huge bugs. There's these beetles, too. There's these June bugs that keep flying around and bumping into us and stuff. It's pretty crazy. But we're going to check this out.

[00:15:48]And we're going to get some incredible photos in. And again, the photos 30-second exposure, you can see a whole lot more.

[00:15:57]All right. So this is under this alcove.

[00:16:02]You can see all the way over there. So there's multiple rooms.

[00:16:08]And again, it just hangs off the edge. And again, we do some astrophotography here.

[00:16:16]Just a minute, we'll light this sucker up.

[00:16:18]And get a good view of what we want.

[00:16:21]You need to get a better feel for it.

[00:16:22]Again, this is a lot smaller than it looks in the photos.

[00:16:30]But you can see inside there.

[00:16:33]>> [snorts] >> You can see there's burn marks from the fire.

[00:16:39]Since there were fires, it was probably more of a camping site at some point.

[00:16:45]And then eventually it got turned in to what we see now. You can see the adobe on the outside.

[00:16:51]No restoration. It's all the original adobe.

[00:17:00]It's a lot of rodent droppings in here.

[00:17:05]Not good to breathe in.

[00:17:09]But you can see this goes all the way up here.

[00:17:12]These doors would have been sealed up.

[00:17:15]See droppings there from the birds.

[00:17:16]Well, here's a fun one. Got a black widow on its web right here.

[00:17:22]If you can see her, big old red hourglass.

[00:17:28]I don't want to get too much closer.

[00:17:31]Maybe I'll film this with a another phone, but you can see this big old messy web right here.

[00:17:38]See if we can get another another photo of her here in a sec.

[00:17:48]So, we got Again, there's multiple doors, and these doors are very small. These are not meant for people to go in and out of.

[00:17:57]These are just meant to be sealed up, and you store your corn in here.

[00:18:03]So, again, multiple You can see the walls. This was walled back in. And there's even a bit of a timber up top there.

[00:18:12]Which that's very rare.

[00:18:15]And then, there's one more over here.

[00:18:26]Need a good view over there.

[00:18:28]See, no carbon here. This is just for storage.

[00:18:35]It's pretty cool.

[00:18:41]Ancient granary, 4th of July.

[00:18:46]Got another much bigger black widow down here.

[00:18:54]See if we can get a another shot of her up close.

[00:18:59]So, the camera setup I got here, this is the Canon EOS 6D.

[00:19:03]Uh a really incredible astrophotographer friend of mine, uh he sold me this used, and I bought the lens new, and I've been doing a lot of astrophotography over the years, doing really a lot of cool time lapses. And uh what's really fun is light painting.

[00:19:19]Light painting is when you take a dark shot, but you maybe do like a 30-second exposure, and you really quickly flash a light in certain areas. So, we're going to play around with this, but the Milky Way is perfect, and this is absolutely incredible cuz there's forest fires, I don't know, 30 mi to the north of us just blasting with all the smoke is blowing north or to the south.

[00:19:42]So, we're going to keep getting some amazing shots.

[00:20:16]Well, I think got some good shots, and see the ruins up here.

[00:20:22]It's pretty epic site. I recommend coming in the daytime. It's far more beautiful, but this is a unique thing to do. 4th of July weekend. It's a billion degrees, and then it's cold. A billion degrees, it's cold. Sweating like a pig, then freezing, shivering. Um one of the things, >> [music] >> there's lights up there. So, one thing is you don't enter these. We put no lights in these ruins. In the entryway, there's little signs on the actual doorways that say, "Do not enter in."

[00:20:50]It's a little like a but you know, plastic thing. We have uh the lights sitting on top of those. So, it looks illuminated.

[00:20:59]And we have things hidden behind rocks and stuff, but there are no lights that we actually placed inside the actual ruins themselves, but you can still get this look. So, again, uh I don't know all my settings on these. I'll I'll double-check and and post them here. But, uh but, again, these are 30-second exposures and catch the Milky Way. They're not perfect shots, but they're fun. It's fun to get out here and experience nature and experience these ruins in a very unique and totally different way. And again, [music] to think you know, a thousand years ago these were lifeline for people. People grew corn in this desolate environment and they would store it here about a mile away from the pueblo where they lived. And uh it's it's pretty cool. So, um >> [music] >> thank you for coming along. Thank you for spending Fourth of July evening with me. And always remember that life is a gift. So, never stop learning and never stop exploring. [music] We'll see you next time.