Walnut Canyon

Just twenty minutes outside of Flagstaff is Walnut Canyon, a totally cool National Monument full of cliff dwellings that you can actually walk into. You take a terrific hike down (and eventually up) long staircases into the canyon, then tour around an interesting "island" in the middle of the canyon, poking into the cliff dwellings at will.

You can see many many other cliff dwellings across the canyon, almost like an adjacent apartment building. Surely they waved to their neighbors.

For those not interested in the 240 stairs down and up, or whatever it was, there is a rim trail. Grandpa is right in the center of this photo.

The canyon has lots of interesting plant life. This one is a euphorbia.

Alligator juniper.

Claret cup cactus.

Painted Desert and Petrified Forest

On the way from Canyon de Chelly back to Flagstaff, we drove through the Painted Desert, which is just bizarre, the hills vividly striped in precise horizontal bands. 

(That's one of our rental cars; we needed two for all of our family and luggage.)

On the same road, we were suitably amazed by the Petrified Forest, where the petrified logs really look exactly like fallen fresh trees but are made of brilliant agate and amethyst. Even the wood chips look exactly like wood chips but are gems. We were all stunned.

Jordan demonstrated that even though what he's holding looks like a soft wood chip, it's as strong and hard as a rock (because it is a rock).

I wonder how many generations of tourists, though, are lulled by the name "Petrified Forest" into imagining the trees are still standing. Would it not be incredible, to walk through a forest turned to stone? This is not a forest. But it's still a very imaginative place.

Canyon de Chelly

Our spring break in Northern Arizona also included a day at Canyon de Chelly. I learned why it is pronounced “shay”: the Navajo word is Tseyi, meaning “within the rocks,” and when the Spanish came along they transliterated that to Chelly and added “Canyon de,” which was redundant. An amusing representation of the cultural mixing and misinterpreting of colonialism. We took a driving tour into the canyon. This canyon is less spectacular and more intimate than Monument Valley, more about the human history. The big attraction for people like us is the cliff dwellings and petroglyphs and pictographs, which are amazing. But also it was interesting to learn that plenty of families still live in Tseyi, especially in the summer; they farm, and graze horses and sheep, and overall have a life not entirely unlike the people who built those cave dwellings.

Here we are outside our tour vehicle with our guide, Perry, on the right. Much more comfortable than the open-air truck in Monument Valley, but much less visibility.

The canyon is pretty spectacular when you get all the way into it. Car on the lower right for scale. 

The drive is all through the "wash" of the river that flows in the canyon, mostly just a few inches deep.

There are cliff dwellings everywhere in the canyon; here are some we got relatively close to. Note both levels.

It's interesting to think about; why build there? There is good shelter and good isolation from invaders (human or animal), but man, the work of just getting in and out of your little town all the time, and carrying water? seems like a lot. Another possibility is that there were dwellings all over the canyon, and the cliff dwellings are the only ones left (because they are protected from the elements, and hard to get to).

Pictographs and petroglyphs are a major attraction. I learned that pictographs are drawings on rock, added with paint or stain; petroglyphs are drawings pecked into the rock. As for what they mean, very hard to say. Some of them seem like they might be pieces of a written language like Egyptian hieroglyphs, some seem to show scenes of events like hunting parties, some seem like art, some seem like graffiti. It is undeniably something, though, to be looking at marks made by ancient people.

Petroglyph from Canyon de Chelly:

Petroglyph from Monument Valley:

Back to Canyon de Chelly for pictographs: these are antelopes.

You may have to enlarge this one to see the pictographs: imagine someone climbing up to the base of that cliff face to do these. wow.

Fun with monuments

Harry set up for us to take a bunch of goofy photos ("for Facebook!"), which I have to admit are awesome.

Monument Valley

The huge, wonderful highlight of Monument Valley was taking a tour into the valley – we used the Navajo Spirit tour company and they were completely awesome, I highly recommend them. It was such a funny mix: the jaw-dropping monuments (and who knew there were SO MANY of them?), the unbelievable howling wind smiting you with dust, the guide playing his granddaughter’s hypnotic Indian flute while we lay back on a rock under a natural arch, arriving to visit a lady in a mud hovel (they are called hogans) for a weaving demo but she was out, petroglyphs and pictographs (and now I know the difference), learning about our guide’s personal history (punished for speaking Navajo in school), laughing at the silly Facebook photo ops. I think the mix of sacred / pragmatic / silly / primitive / modern is probably pretty much how it is on the Navajo nation, or maybe any reservation. It was extremely educational and physically uncomfortable and fantastically satisfying.

The truck was an open-air safari kind of thing pulled along sandy roads by a big tough truck.

You are only allowed into Monument Valley with a Navajo guide, which is part of their stewardship.

We went in the spring to avoid the heat, ad the temperatures were fine for our whole trip - kind of chilly actually, even with the sun. But the wind, oh my heavens. On the day we went to Monument Valley the wind was blasting in record gusts, pelting us with dust and sand. We took every possible measure to shield ourselves from it. The boys had a good thing going with hats, hoodies to hold the hats on, sunglasses, and bandanas; the rest of us used scarves or what have you. It had not occurred to some of us that the cowboy/bandit look could be practical as well as stylish.

Here are a few of the hundreds of incredible monuments. They were left here when seas that used to fill the valley receded; this has happened three times. 

Up close, some of the formations have alcoves and arches and skylights. 

We stopped in one sheltered alcove to hear our guide, Harry, play his granddaughter's flute. Jordan tried it too; it is much like a recorder.

This wall has a bison shape in it. This would be the only bison around here - bison are a Plains thing.

The traditional housing here would be a hogan, made of wood and mud, which are the local materials. Inside, it was such a relief to be out of the wind, we were inclined to perceive them as absolutely fantastic.