More of the Canyons -- Saturday, 9/16/17

... continuing our Saturday, after our morning hike down to the White House ....  Jimmy and I had the afternoon to explore more of the canyon areas.  Seven years ago, we drove the South Rim to Spider Rock Overlook.  Today we decided to head out on the North Rim. We know of at least three more ruins visible from the rim.  You truly have to see this Navajo sandstone in person to believe how visually stunning it is.  I've tried to show some of the fantastic colors and vibrant tones, as well as the swirls and convoluted shapes with my little point 'n shoot.  The rocks are dramatic and spectacular.

The canyons round bends and continue on, or they become box canyons.

Often, it's hard to decipher from up on the rim.

A white boulder sits alone atop the red sandstone, above.

Below, red and white intertwine.

Along the North Rim -- Mummy Cave ruin.  It's one of the largest ancestral Puebloan villages in the canyon, occupied to about 1300.  Did the canyon look like this a thousand years ago?  How did people adapt to their surroundings!

Part of the ruins, close up.

How lovely this canyon is!

A bit of sun illuminates a tiny piece of greenery attached to the cliff stone.

(The cliff face itself looks tenuous). 

Juniper shade!  Marvelous venerable tree.

Now in Canyon del Muerto, we came to the last overlook.  The above cave is called Massacre Cave, and it's the site of a bloody murder between the Spanish and the Navajo in 1805. The Spanish attacked the Navajo in the Del Muerto Canyon while the men were hunting. The raiding party was spotted and the remaining Navajo (old men, women and children) hid in what is now the Massacre Cave, high up in the 1000 ft canyon wall and inaccessible from above. The Spaniards located them from the rim above and began a hail of bullets. Over 115 Navajo were killed. There are still marks on the walls of the cave left by ricocheting rifle bullets. Some of the Spaniards made the hard climb up from below. In one of the hand-to-hand battles which followed, a Navajo woman pushed a Spanish soldier backwards off the ledge and fell with him to death on the rocks below. Despite the tragedy that occurred here, the Cave and its surroundings provide a breathtaking view.  (I copied much of this from various sources, and all agree.)  Over and over, these kinds of tragedies occurred.  So sad.

In the photo above this one, a tiny cave is left of the far left cave; was it made for elves or imps?  We pondered it's usage, because it was so small and set apart ... and there was no way to tell if it connected to the others via an inside passage.

This was as far as we went.  We'd seen much and it was time to turn around.  Jimmy wanted to look for a restaurant in Chinle, so we bypassed Tergel and drove to town.  We found one restaurant (Junction) and, since we were starving, we went in.  (who knew what time it was ... see next paragraph).  Long story shortened:  Soon the entire restaurant was filled with Navajo, some in native dress, others in jeans, cowboy hats and boots.  We saw long braids, and buzz cuts on some younger men. For Jimmy and me, it was an unreal experience, being the only "Anglos" in a packed eatery. Our waitress said she thought a Pow-wow (with stomp dance, which would account for native dress) had either just ended or would begin after dinner.  Very cool.  (good grub, too)

The next morning (Sunday) a brief shower surprised us as we awoke.  We made up to leave on Navajo Code Talkers Highway.  But what time was it?  Danged if we knew!  When we left Nevada (PDT) into Utah, the time zone changed to MDT, but Arizona, who is in MT time, doesn’t follow DST, which moved us back to PDT. Some of our clocks automatically reset, some didn’t and our phones changed and then decided to revert.  One clock is set on Central time.  The irregularly-shaped Navajo Nation does recognize DST in AZ, but the nation is also in NM, and the Hopi reservation inside the Navajo Nation doesn't.  We’re really screwed.  Or in the immortal words of Chicago:

"Does anybody really know what time it is?

Does anybody really care?" 😀

Captivating Canyon de Chelly, Fri/Sun 9/15-9/17

When Jimmy and I spent a few days in Canyon de Chelly seven years ago, all the Cottonwood leaves were golden and gorgeous. This year, all is green in the National Monument, and provides welcome shade. Seven years ago no fee was charged at the campground. This year it's $14/night to stay, and still no hookups. But it is a really lovely place to park.

Jimmy and I so enjoyed hiking the 3-mile R/T White House Trail seven years ago, we wanted to do it again. This trail to the White House is the only place people may enter without a permit or authorized Navajo guide ... this is sacred Navajo land. We got an early start as you may expect; otherwise, the sun bouncing off the rocks would be very hot.

We hiked 600 ft down to the "White House" ruins (red arrow) via a zigzag trail atop and cut into the red Navajo sandstone.  It's quite a trek down to the canyon floor ... beautiful, too.

Walking through a tunnel starts the way down. 

As we were maybe half way down, we heard a young man in a bright green shirt higher up the trail, yell, "YOW!" By gum, if his "YOW" didn't echo from cliff wall to cliff wall. He yelled once or twice more, and each time his echo resounded throughout the canyon. Well, that guy passed us before we reached the canyon floor. A young Navajo, he stopped to tell us about the yelling. That was how the ancients communicated ... they knew when and where to make a noise, to alert others they were coming or if danger was approaching. He was on his way to sell his wares near the ruins, and his "yow" let the others know he was on his way down. Jimmy tried it on our ascent. Yup, it worked!

Both of us used walking sticks as leverage.  The path is very uneven.

At this point, on the canyon floor, we're still a distance from the ruins.  Navajo vendors set up tables near the ruins to sell their wares directly to tourists.  Some of their jewelry is quite nice.

Clumps and bushes of flowers flourished on the canyon floor. Clockwise from top left: Silver-leafed Nightshade, Sacred Thorn Apple (Datura), lots of Rocky Mountain Bee Plant (full of bees), a cute li'l lizard, and Broom-like Ragwort. Chinle Wash was easy to cross this year ... it was dry and sandy.

I asked a young Navajo woman at the VC about the canyon flowers, and she immediately took me to a book of plants and together we identified the Nightshade. She related a story about her grandmother and how she used a part of the Nightshade plant to make cottage cheese (from goat's milk), and then she continued telling me other tidbits that her grandmother imparted. Nice to hear about the older generation passing on traditional info to newer generations ... a good thing! Sometimes the word sweet applies, and she was a sweet young woman; I was a captive audience.

Ancestral Puebloans built and occupied this place about a thousand years ago.  It's named for the long, white plaster wall in the upper dwelling.  "Desert varnish" colors the cliffs with a dark stain.  A wire fence keeps looky-loos from overrunning the ruins.  Anyone who sees this site cannot help but feel moved, and curious at the same time.

Just below the upper dwelling is the only visible identifiable petroglyph.

Weather has obscured the rest.

A couple of rock squirrels didn't care a whit that we were there.

Somehow we'll make it to the top of the cliff!

We stopped in the shade of Juniper trees to catch our breath, sip water, and eat our granola bars.  The ascent was hot despite our early start, but hikers were still coming down as we approached the top.

The labyrinth called Canyon de Chelly comprises several canyons that include de Chelly, del Muerto, and Monument.  At the canyons' mouth near Chinle, the rock walls are only 30 ft high.  Deeper in the canyons, the walls rise dramatically until they stand over 1,000 ft above the floor.  Cliffs overshadow streams, cottonwoods and small farms with horse and cows.  Canyon scenes appear very pastoral, with neat crop rows.

We returned to Tergel to cool off and down a couple of Gatorade's, agreeing that this was grand way to spend a morning!  We resumed our exploring in the afternoon.

Rolling along in Arizona, Friday, 9/15/17

Decisions, decisions, which way to go.  From our spot in Kaibab Nat'l Forest near GCNP's North Rim, north is the only way you can go.  At Jacob Lake, 89(alt) will take you either west or east. We turned east, and then faced another option -- drive north into Page AZ or south to, well, points south.  I wanted to see Page and perhaps head to Antelope Valley or Monument Valley.  In Page, we gassed up and filled up with water, so we could go wherever we wanted.  Page was a disappointment, full of vehicles, boats and confusion.  We kept on going.  North to Monument Valley ... or south via several hwys to Canyon de Chelly?  We'd been there before and loved it.  So be it.  Off we went on various back roads, some scenic, others made us wish we'd picked better!  However, if this kind of decision was the hardest we had to make today, count us content.

Rolling along, these are some of the scenes we encountered.  Above, a couple of Native American vendors set up tables at the base of a monster sandstone cliff.  Look at the size of the boulder in the foreground!

The Colorado River at Marble Canyon looks more like pumpkin soup!

This photo reminds me, we're out of bacon .... 😉

I've said it before, and here again.

We prefer to have the road to ourselves!

We enjoyed all of Mother Nature's amazing sights today. Late Friday afternoon, we finally pulled into Canyon de Chelly's Cottonwood Campground, found a site that suited our fancy, and settled in under a grand Cottonwood tree.  We're very happy to be here.  Tomorrow we explore.

Canyon de Chelly Nat'l Monument -- 11/8/10

In the Heart of the Navajo Nation -- the fantastic Canyon de Chelly.

Every once in a while you land in a place that strikes you right in the heart, or maybe the solar plexus, and Canyon de Chelly (d'SHAY) was one of those.  I know we came at a time when autumnal colors were at their finest, but it was more than that.  Call it a spiritual experience if you will, but this national monument literally took our breath away.  We took a bit of a detour to visit this magnificent place, and we were so glad we did. 

Wanting to see a ruin up close, we hiked the 2.5-mile R/T White House Trail, which descends 600' to the canyon floor on the most fantastic winding path. Across Chinle Wash, we gazed upward at the White House Ruin (named for the long wall in the upper dwelling that's covered with white plaster). Like everyone else, we wondered why and how ...? And, of course, no concrete answer came.

 

White House Ruin (below check mark) from on high ...

 

... closer,

 ... and up close. 

Archaeological evidence shows that people have lived in the canyon for nearly 5,000 years -- longer than anyone has lived uninterrupted on the Colorado Plateau. Established in 1931 to preserve the record of human history, the monument is now home to the Navajo people. Canyon de Chelly isn't the deepest or the widest or the longest canyon in the southwest, but its striking beauty is unrivaled in our opinion!

Here you can see a part of the serpentine trail to the ruin.

Cottonwoods, wearing their autumn cloaks of yellow, line Chinle Wash.

This was a crazy trail.  It's all about what's called crossbedded sandstone, warm and smooth.  Hiking down the wonderful, but somewhat daunting, wind-sculpted sandstone trail, surrounded by intricate swirls and towering plateaus, we were awed by the reddish-hued rock. The trail was carved from and into sandstone -- there are no handrails, presenting some scary moments!  Watch your step.  (Walking sticks helped a lot.)    

At the junction of Canyon de Chelly and Monument Canyon, the red sandstone spire known as Spider Rock rises dramatically 800' from the canyon floor.  It's quite a stirring, almost theatrical sight.  The mythical Spider Woman chose this pinnacle as her home; she was an important deity in the Navajo culture.

 Looking toward Canyon de Chelly from the south rim.

Tergel and Smartie parked under the brilliant golden cottonwoods at Cottonwood Campground, where -- wowee -- no fee was charged!

Jimmy and I took a billion photos, each one as good as the next, and it was hard to choose. The pics I've posted are just a sampling.  If you ever have the opportunity to visit this quiet and peaceful canyon... DO IT.  It's a gem.