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This website was supported by the National Park Service's Challenge Cost Share Program. WELCOME! Approximately 100,000 people a year are willing and eager to drive a rough and lengthy washboard road to visit Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwestern New Mexico's San Juan Basin. When asked why, most say that they want more than anything to "get away from it all." With the nearest city that offers food and services - Farmington, New Mexico - an hour-and-a-half drive away, Chaco certainly seems to fill the bill. Visitors are often surprised and excited to find that part and parcel of "getting away from it all" also includes being treated to some of the most spectacular views of the dark night sky available anywhere in America. "Once, several years ago, while I was on duty at the front desk, a young woman who had camped the night before approached me and excitedly reported she had seen 'something in the sky last night' and wanted to know what it was. I readied myself for a discussion about UFOs, but she continued, 'It was like a lane of white powder that stretched from one horizon all the way across the sky to the other horizon!' It then became my great joy to report to her that for the first time in her life she had actually seen the 'Milky Way' - a term she had heard before, but had never witnessed!" - G. B. Cornucopia, Park Ranger Sometimes, way out in the distance, along the horizon, visitors can also spot small linked domes of light. When they express curiosity about these domes, they are told that these are the skyward-facing lights of distant cities and towns, which are reflected in the earth's atmosphere. Sometimes the light reflected from the domes is bright enough to make it difficult to see the stars in the sky. This competition between townlight and starlight raises questions that have provided the staff of Chaco Culture NHP with the perfect opportunity to weigh in on an issue of increasing concern in communities throughout the United States, as well as in many developed countries around the world--that of light pollution, and the diminishment of the natural darkness of the night sky. Chaco Culture National Historic Park was created by Congress primarily to protect the remains of the area's rich prehistory - antecedent to the rich cultures of today's Pueblo peoples, who still live and flourish in the arid Southwest environment. A thousand years ago, a complex civilization reached its apex in Chaco Canyon, producing some of the grandest and most complex prehistoric structures ever found in what is today the United States. Spectacular, multistoried "Great House" structures sometimes cover more than three acres and contain between 500 and 800 rooms - but their purposes remain shrouded in mystery. Sherds of ancient pottery litter the ground - sometimes in mounds several feet high. Whole and fragmentary stone tools used for daily chores and special events are also in evidence. Chaco's sandstone cliffs bear myriad mysterious pecked and painted drawings, perhaps representing clan symbols, offering clues about activities taking place, celebrating life ways, planning seasonal ceremonies, or planting crops. Some - of particular relevance to this website - appear to depict celestial bodies or astronomical events such as eclipses, solstices, and equinoxes.