Tracks Lead Straight to this Cave...I had to Know.

[00:00:00]Coming up in today's video. See it.

[00:00:02]Anybody see a bear back there? Look at that footprint right there. That looks like a bear print to me. [music] So after seeing those bear tracks, I got out of the the bottom part of the water there.

[00:00:13]When you're in low like that, you know, you can be ambushed really easily by predator animals.

[00:00:19]Down there is the bear tracks and I'm like, okay, I'm going to start heading higher.

[00:00:22]Look what I find up here.

[00:00:25]Look how far back that goes.

[00:00:27]Look, right up there.

[00:00:34]Wow, that's pretty cool.

[00:00:38]Oh, we got a cave system back up in there also.

[00:01:06]All right, I am down in the valley and I am headed back. Hopefully there's not any big washouts and I can make some time running through this canyon instead of having to climb up and out.

[00:01:19]We'll see.

[00:01:20]So I'm headed back in the wash here and check this out.

[00:01:27]Of course there won't be any dwellings or anything here because the water flows right through here and you can see how it's cut it out but pretty cool.

[00:01:42]So this is the kind of thing that I see, you know, that doesn't usually show up on camera when I'm moving to and from the different sites.

[00:01:51]Okay, so I just froze because check this out. Look at that footprint right there.

[00:01:57]That looks like a bear print to me.

[00:02:01]And there's another one. You can see it.

[00:02:04]You see the pad and you see the See the paws, so Yeah, and you can see it.

[00:02:11]Ooh.

[00:02:12]All right.

[00:02:14]Time to go on uh high alert. Look, you can see it really clearly there.

[00:02:19]>> [snorts] >> It's either a bear or Bigfoot.

[00:02:25]Okay. Well, let's be careful, huh? So, after seeing those bear tracks, I got out of the the bottom part of the wash there and uh up a little bit higher, and I may go even higher because uh when you're in low like that, you know, you can be ambushed really easily by predator animals.

[00:02:44]And uh I don't want to be ambushed.

[00:02:48]So, uh I'm probably going to go higher and uh walk across the top of the mesa, even though this would have been quicker.

[00:02:56]Um yeah.

[00:03:00]It's just uh Yeah, I'm seeing them again here.

[00:03:04]So, they got out of the wash, too.

[00:03:07]So, yeah. Let's uh let's keep moving.

[00:03:11]Yeah, they did the same thing. You can see they got out of the wash, too.

[00:03:14]There's their tracks.

[00:03:16]You know, and it's been since the last rain uh that they've been here, so interesting.

[00:03:23]Down there is the bear tracks, and I went like, "Okay, I'm going to start heading higher."

[00:03:27]Look what I find up here.

[00:03:29]Hopefully there's not a bear in here, but uh there is the remains of an ancient dwelling here, or an ancient structure.

[00:03:39]So, uh let's check it out real quick. This is I This is what I mean, guys, when I say, you know, even though we're headed back to the Wow, look at this.

[00:03:51]Headed back to the camper. Man, that goes way back in there.

[00:03:58]The explore is not over.

[00:04:02]That's wild. That goes way back.

[00:04:05]Let's see over here. I wonder why they they uh walled up this side.

[00:04:14]See, you can see the wall and where it tied in over there.

[00:04:20]And look at that.

[00:04:25]I'm looking. I don't see any bear tracks here, so we're good to go there.

[00:04:29]But, look how far back that goes.

[00:04:31]This would have been a great storage area.

[00:04:40]Wow, cave after cave after cave, huh?

[00:04:44]Crazy.

[00:04:48]I guess this would have been the door here.

[00:04:50]And the rest of it is kind of washed away. Looks like it's all fallen here.

[00:04:55]But, all right. Uh the weather's turning turning on us, so I need to keep heading back. I was kind of fortunate I Uh you can see it right there, the little wall and the two caves behind me.

[00:05:09]Uh that uh the bear tracks drove me out of the wash, otherwise I would have never seen these. So, we should maybe try to stay along this line.

[00:05:20]Boy, we got a lot of wind coming in. You can see there's a storm.

[00:05:24]Supposed to rain tomorrow.

[00:05:26]So. [snorts] Yep, we got to get out of here. Let's go.

[00:05:32]Like the cool things never end. I just came around the corner and there's this cave.

[00:05:38]See it? Anybody see a bear back there?

[00:05:40]But, look at the ceiling.

[00:05:42]They've used this. Look, it's stained.

[00:05:46]Wow.

[00:05:47]Huh.

[00:05:50]Goes way back in there.

[00:05:53]But they Somebody's been in here making fires. Look at that.

[00:05:57]Wow.

[00:06:00]Man, this is an old This is an old area.

[00:06:04]They occupied this area a while.

[00:06:07]Wow.

[00:06:08]I wonder if we can zoom in and see anything back there.

[00:06:23]Very cool. All right, let's keep going.

[00:06:26]Look at this rock sitting right on the edge.

[00:06:29]I don't even know what's holding it on.

[00:06:31]But right behind it, check it out. Look at that.

[00:06:41]I don't know if I'll get to it today, but we'll get to it.

[00:06:49]I think Look, it is barely on the edge there.

[00:06:53]Just perfectly balanced. Crazy.

[00:06:57]I don't know, guys.

[00:06:59]How the heck am I going to get in there?

[00:07:09]Probably got to come down that side there, but boy, one slip and you're done.

[00:07:16]And it's a long ways down.

[00:07:19]Mhm.

[00:07:21]Looks like this is uh connected to it, but it doesn't look like there's an easy way to get down through there, either.

[00:07:32]Mhm.

[00:07:34]Well, we're headed back in that general direction, but I've got this big cove right here.

[00:07:40]So, we'll check it out on our way going past it.

[00:07:43]That's going to be for another day.

[00:07:45]First, I got to evaluate [music] the film to see if I can get to it even.

[00:08:31]>> I'm in love I'm in I'm in I'm in I'm in >> In the meantime, I'm going to drop down and scoot along the face here and work my way back. So far the rain's holding off, which is awesome.

[00:10:14]Um I do have a rain jacket, but uh it's no fun moving when you're wet.

[00:10:20]And I think the temperature is supposed to drop down pretty low, like in the 40s, so you don't want to be wet and uh out in the desert in 40° temperature.

[00:10:32]Hypothermia type stuff, so let's go. Let's get back.

[00:10:37]Well, I'm just working my way along this cliff face and uh look right here in front of us, guys.

[00:10:46]There's pottery.

[00:10:48]So, what does that tell us?

[00:10:51]It tells us there's probably something above us.

[00:10:56]And look at that.

[00:10:58]>> [laughter] >> I I saw that there and I'm like, what? And yep, sure enough. So, now we got to check this out. But uh pretty good, those uh telltale signs.

[00:11:14]It looks uh like it's uh taking some hits.

[00:11:26]Wow.

[00:11:27]That's pretty cool.

[00:11:29]Um we got a cave system back up in there also.

[00:11:37]So Oh, wow.

[00:11:39]This was This was huge. These are were all the roof timbers. Look how big and solid they were. And look uh the wall came out all the way to here.

[00:11:52]So this I'm I'm almost This to me almost looks like the front one the front part of it here was a possibly a kiva, especially seeing how it angles like this.

[00:12:05]Now you're going to hear a lot about oh, kivas were for ceremonial purposes and that kind of thing.

[00:12:12]Some were Some were used for you know, we don't we have no idea. They could have been used for keeping animals [clears throat] or uh just living in. Um the ones in the tourist areas are huge. This is a small one. Uh they wouldn't be doing any kind of ceremonies here. They're actually living here.

[00:12:31]Uh you can see where the fire's been in the back. So um anyways, that's just my personal opinion. I'm no expert, but uh from what I've seen on the ground, I I I hate putting things in a box cuz we have no idea and this could have been here for a thousand years. So that means generation after generation is using it for a different reason. So anyways, enough of that. Let's uh let's explore this.

[00:13:02]Wow, so check this out. This front part here uh it's all collapsed down.

[00:13:07]Um probably was a kiva type structure.

[00:13:11]Uh we have a lot of pottery. Look.

[00:13:15]And I'm seeing flint shards everywhere, too.

[00:13:20]But it was uh you had this front structure cuz you can see the walls behind. Look, check it out underneath.

[00:13:31]I'm wondering, you know, if they didn't use use these for um keeping animals, too, you know.

[00:13:40]Just don't really know.

[00:13:41]Uh but then we've got a looks like a full structure in the back and then this part over here. So, let's uh let's get up there and see what we see. So, again, from this side you can see how this front structure was.

[00:13:53]And um yeah, I mean, I would call it a kiva-type structure.

[00:13:57]But um I don't know that it was necessarily used for for ceremonial purposes. It doesn't seem like that in a living area like this.

[00:14:10]So, this is all built up. Look at that wall. Man, was it solid.

[00:14:15]And then uh We've got where they were making fire back here.

[00:14:23]Wow, look at this.

[00:14:27]So, this is burnt broken pottery right here.

[00:14:33]That's really telling.

[00:14:36]Look at that.

[00:14:42]And another piece there.

[00:14:46]And with the smoke going back in here, I'm wondering if they didn't have the fire up this high.

[00:14:51]Because I mean, it's not stained down here.

[00:14:57]I wonder if there's anything in there.

[00:14:59]No, it just kind of ends right there.

[00:15:04]>> [snorts] >> We've got more stuff down here.

[00:15:13]This uh rock's got burn marks on it.

[00:15:17]Interesting, huh?

[00:15:18]Now, I do see some smoke along the top here.

[00:15:24]And then on the roof, of course.

[00:15:26]Or the upper part there.

[00:15:30]And it's too bad all this has fallen away, but you can see how it's elevated right here.

[00:15:36]So the this there's structure that I would I was in a structure.

[00:15:40]There may have been another one out here, and then you had this uh log kiva type structure out in front, and then you had this one here.

[00:15:53]Here we got more more pottery.

[00:16:02]And yet another structure right here.

[00:16:04]This looks like uh this was where the doorway was. You can see right here where it's smoothed out and flat here.

[00:16:11]Uh but it's all fallen in now.

[00:16:15]And that was all the roof structure there.

[00:16:18]Boy, and there was another dwelling there that's just completely gone.

[00:16:26]So interesting. I'm going to move around to the other side so we can see it from this way. But here you can see down into this, and man, the size of these beams that they brought in.

[00:16:40]Wow.

[00:16:42]I'm just scanning the wall right here really quickly for you guys.

[00:16:47]If you see anything, uh make sure you put it in the comments.

[00:16:55]And of course, they were near a great water source. You can see that it would come down and flow right here.

[00:17:00]So, which is part of the reason it's probably destroyed like it is.

[00:17:05]Uh when we had a lot of rain, it would of course came over and took this thing out.

[00:17:13]Which is too bad.

[00:17:19]>> Really well built.

[00:17:25]Just down from it and you can see that's the the dark gray corrugated and then you've got other gray pottery.

[00:17:34]Here's more.

[00:17:36]This is an old structure.

[00:17:38]Boy, just a ton of pottery through here just about everywhere.

[00:17:43]Um you move up here.

[00:17:56]You can see this was the uh the lip of the bowl.

[00:18:23]So, this was all part of a dwelling, too, on the backside here.

[00:18:30]You can see it was deeper down.

[00:18:32]Kind of leveled up there.

[00:18:43]This support beam should have been there.

[00:18:46]You can see there was one here and then the other one was going to be right there.

[00:19:00]Wow, very interesting.

[00:19:07]You can see how the the kiva kind of dropped down in front there.

[00:19:11]This what uh makes me think that uh may have been used to store domestic animals.

[00:19:19]Um since it's down below the the area where they would have been living.

[00:19:28]But, that's just that's just speculation on my part and just from what I've seen on the ground here.

[00:19:35]Then right over here you have this kind of cave that goes back in there.

[00:19:42]Can't really see in there.

[00:19:47]And I don't see any Moki steps or anything um heading up there.

[00:19:55]So, I don't know if it was utilized.

[00:19:59]And just uh one last look here.

[00:20:02]Again, it looks like you had this uh lower kiva structure in the front here. You had a room there.

[00:20:09]A room there.

[00:20:13]Pretty neat.

[00:20:25]Well, I hope you enjoyed today's video.

[00:20:27]Uh thanks for coming along with me. If you enjoyed this, hey give it a thumbs up. That helps out the channel quite a bit. Um if you're not subscribed, go ahead and subscribe. And uh yeah, thanks for joining me and I'll see you guys on the next explore. We got a big storm coming in, so I'm trying to beat [clears throat] that uh to get back to the camper. But, uh take care. Enjoy your weekend and the rest of your week [music] and we'll see you uh on the next video.

[00:21:33]>> I never feel