Canyon de Chelly

Sculpted sandstone at Canyon de Chelly
National Monument, Arizona.

Canyon de Chelly, a moderate-sized national monument in the northeast corner of Arizona, was not one of my planned destinations through the Southwest this spring, but it made sense to stop given my route from New Mexico to southern Utah. It was a brief stop, but a treat!

The monument is within the Navajo Nation, a large Native American reservation that stretches from the Grand Canyon to the Four Corners region. The Tribe and the Park Service have joint management responsibility for the monument, and that specific arrangement is manifest in some of the not-so-ordinary arrangements for an NPS site (more on that in a bit).

The monument is accessible from the small town of Chinle on US route 191 and this is essentially where the canyon begins. It deepens to the east, branching into several canyons. There are north and south rim drives but I only had time to observe the canyon from the south rim and make a few stops before heading to southern Utah.

Maps of Canyon de Chelly National Monument. At left: Map of Canyon de Chelly's location in northeast Arizona in the Four Corners region by Shannon1, cropped and arrow added to original map, CC BY-SA 4.0 license. At right: General map of the monument by the National Park Service, public domain.

At the end of the south rim road is a viewpoint of Spider Rock, a picturesque pair of red rock spires that tower hundreds of feet above the canyon floor. At the lookout point there are some wonderful panoramas of the winding canyon and vegetation growing below.

Spider Rock, Canyon de Chelly National Monument.

At only one location in the monument are visitors allowed to walk unguided into the canyon, and that is the short trail to White House. The trail begins on the mesa and then descends pretty steeply into the canyon. Several plots of land are visible on the canyon floor – these farmed areas are privately owned by members of the Navajo Nation.

Once one has descended several hundred feet into the canyon, it is only a short distance more to the White House, which are ancient ruins set in the base of a towering rock cliff. The ruins are similar to those found at Mesa Verde and Bandelier and were constructed centuries before the Navajo people entered the area. In fact, the Canyon has apparently been inhabited by humans for some 5000 years.

Two views of the White House at Canyon de Chelly. The upper level has original remains of Ancient Puebloan dwellings while the structures on the canyon floor below have apparently been restored recently.

Near the White House, several Navajo artisans had set up tables on the dusty canyon floor and were selling jewelry and pottery. This vending was apparently one of the unique arrangements between the Park Service and the Tribe. The other is that guided tours throughout other areas of the canyon are offered by Navajo Nation members. I spoke with one artisan for a bit and purchased a small seed pot from her which was engraved with her name on the bottom and “CDC”, the abbreviation for the monument. She resided in Chinle but her family owned a plot of land in the canyon.    

Some petroglyphs near the White House.

Mesa Verde

Mesa Verde National Park preserves the pit dwellings, cliff houses, petroglyphs, and other structures of the Ancestral Pueblo people who inhabited the area from about 600 CE to 1300 CE. From the northern entrance to the park in southwestern Colorado, one ascends towards the highest point of the park and then gradually descends traveling southward into one of several valleys where the Ancestral Pueblo lived.

Spruce House. This area has been closed due to the hazards of rock falls. Here the Ancestral Pueblo built a village in a well-sheltered alcove in the sandstone cliffs. 

Spruce canyon with Yucca baccata in the foreground.

The park was different from my expectations prior to the visit, mainly in terms of vegetation and topography. I had pictured cliff dwellings set in steep mountains covered with green forests and lingering snow at this time of year. Rather, the mesa environment was fairly dry with more sparse vegetation and just a bit of snow in places. The snow-covered peaks of Colorado and eastern Utah could be seen in the distance, however.

A one mile hike from Spruce Tree House takes one to a small collection of petroglyphs carved into the vertical face of light-colored sandstone rock. The trail also affords pretty remarkable views of the canyons that cut the mesa at the south end of the park.

The cliff houses were the most interesting feature of the park in my view. These structures were made of sandstone blocks with mortar, and set in the vertical faces or alcoves of sandstone cliffs. One tower was 4-storied. Some of the dwelling locations seemed pretty inaccessible from either the top of the mesa or the valleys below. These areas possibly afforded protection from the elements or from hostile neighbors. The dwellings were apparently abandoned by the population of the area abruptly about 700 years ago but the cause isn’t well understood. 

Square Tower House.

Reference

Patraw PM. 1977. Flowers of the Southwest mesas. Southwest Parks and Monuments Association, Globe, AZ.

Sunset over eastern Utah.

Sunset from "Geologic Outlook".

Dinosaur National Monument

I’ve been in coastal Oregon long enough to get very accustomed to mild temperatures, lots of rain and green everywhere.  But during the late spring I made a short trip to Dinosaur National Monument in eastern Utah.  It was comparatively warm and dry, even though apparently the state had pretty substantial levels of precipitation (snow).  Here are some pictures:

Petroglyphs

Lizards were common

A little hard to make out, but there are dinosaur vertebrae across the center of the picture.

A beautiful sego lily