Hovenweep, a Paiute and Ute word meaning “deserted valley,” was the name given this place by pioneer photographer William H. Jackson after his visit in 1874. Though surrounded by a vast and lonely expanse, these solitary canyons once echoed with the cries and laughter of hundreds of men, women and children. Established as a National Monument in 1923, Hovenweep preserves what archeologists consider the finest examples of ancestral Puebloan masonry found anywhere, including multi-story towers standing alone along canyon rims and ingeniously engineered structures perched on massive boulders and ledges within the canyons. These ruins evoke wonder at the motivations and resourcefulness of their builders. Pueblo Indian scholar Rina Swentzell of Santa Clara called Hovenweep the most symbolic of places in the Southwest, a place where she felt the nature and energy of bear, rock, clouds, and water, and became aware of energies outside herself and outside the human context.