Taking a road trip down to the four-corners area in exploration of the Colorado Plateau, we jumped off our main route to this lonely spot after a scenic drive through the Canyon of the Ancients. With the waning sunlight further coloring the golden structures, we took the trail around the rim of the little canyon where the ruins sit. As the movie in the Visitor Center noted, we tried to relate the term "pueblo" and the descriptions of varying environments of each of the spots illustrated as separate locales to what is, to our modern eyes, a series of small homes up the street from each other in a very small town.

After visiting this small out-of-the-way monument last month, I put together a kind of virtual tour of the short trail around the Ancestral Puebloan ruins around Square Tower Canyon. Using GPS data and the photos I took, this AfterEffects animation walks around the trail flashing the location where I took pictures, creating a color palette of Hovenweep as it goes.