The Sun Dagger Site of Fajada Butte

High on the side of Fajada Butte, a 400-foot sandstone spire at the entrance to Chaco Canyon, three upright slabs lean against a cliff face in front of two spiral petroglyphs. Around the solstices and equinoxes, a blade of light passes between the slabs and strikes the spirals, forming what its 1977 discoverer, Anna Sofaer, called the Sun Dagger: a calendrical device in stone, built by the Chacoan people around a thousand years ago. The discovery made the site famous quickly, and that fame did the damage. The Park Service restricted access in 1982, and in 1989 it was found that two of the three slabs had shifted, off-centering the light patterns. The verdict of the evaluation team was that foot traffic had accelerated natural erosion; boot soles on soft sandstone and trampled soil had moved the very stones that made the calendar work. Today access is monitoring-only, and the National Park Service states plainly that the site is no longer open to the public.

Visitors now see Fajada Butte from an overlook off the park road, the great spire rising 135 meters above the canyon floor with its secret hidden on high. The closure is the honest centerpiece of this place's story: the Sun Dagger is one of the clearest cases where modern visitation destroyed the thing it loved, and where the response was to stop. Chaco Canyon itself remains open with a $25 vehicle fee, its great houses and its own dark sky, and the Park Service credits the canyon's sites to the Hopi, the New Mexico Pueblos, and the Navajo, whose traditions continue to honor them.

Visiting

Chaco Culture National Historical Park carries the entrance fees ($25/vehicle); Fajada Butte is viewable from the park-road overlook only; check park alerts for road conditions before driving in.

Photo: [National Park Service](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chaco_Canyon_Fajada_Butte_in_snow_NPS.jpg), public domain.