Canyon de Chelly

We visited one of the most fantastic places in these United States………..Canyon de Chelly (pr: d’ shay) in north east Arizona.

It’s located just outside the town of Chinle, AZ, which is a very interesting place. Horses roam freely on the streets, crossing streets without fear as they seem to know that all vehicles will stop for them.

We camped in the Cottonwood Campground near the Visitors Center and did our touring from there.

A few notes from the visitor’s information packet:

“Archeological evidence shows that people have lived in these canyons for nearly 5,000 years---longer than anyone has lived uninterrupted anywhere on the Colorado Plateau.The first residents built no permanent homes, but remains of their campsites and images etched or painted on the canyon walls tell us their stories. Later, people we call Basketmaker built household compounds, storage facilities, and social and ceremonial complexes high on ledges in the walls of the canyons. They lived in small groups, hunted game, grew corn and beans, and created paintings on the walls that surrounded them. The ancient Puebloan people followed. Predecessors of today’s Pueblo and Hopi Indians, they are often called Anasazi: a Navajo word meaning ancient ones. These Puebloan people built multi-storied villages, small household compounds, and kivas with decorated walls that dot the canyon alcoves and talus slopes. About 700 years ago most of these people moved away, but a few of them remained in the canyons.

Later, migrating Hopi Indians and other tribes spent summers hunting and farming here. Then at the end of a long journey, the Navajo arrived. They built homes in the canyon, learned new crafts and new ways of farming, and added their own designs to the walls of this ancient gallery.

The labyrinth called Canyon de Chelly is really several canyons, which include Canyon de Chelly and Canyon del Muerto. At the mouth of the canyon the rock walls are only 30 feet high. Deeper into the canyons to the east, the walls rise dramatically until they reach more 1,000 feet above the canyon floor. The cliffs rise straight up, overshadowing the streams, cottonwoods, and small farms below. It has taken about two million years and volumes of water to etch these stone paths through the layers of sandstone and igneous rock as the Defiance Plateau pushed its way upward. Today the canyon still beckons us---with its towering stone monoliths and ledges bearing the open windows of ancient peoples.

Canyon de Chelly National Monument was established in 1931 to preserve archeological ruins within these canyons and their important record of human history. Embracing nearly 84,000 acres within the Navajo Reservation, the monument is administered by the National Park Service. But these rock canyons belong to Dine’, the Navajo people.”

You can drive around the canyon rims on the north and south sides which affords you a great view down into the canyon and the ruins contained there. But to truly appreciate how spectacular the canyon really is, you must take a tour into the canyon!!!!

We took a 6-1/2 hour tour with Thunderbird Canyon Tours in a 1952 Army 6 x 6, 2-1/2 ton truck with the outside duels taken off as well the brakes………..yes, I said brakes! We were out in the elements and had a spectacular view of the canyon from all angles!!!

The canyon is the ancestral home of the Navajo Indians and is controlled by them, there is no access to the canyon floor except with a Navajo guide. Our guide, George, was not only a great historian but also a good driver as the “roads” in the canyon go over rocks, running water, and every other terrain possible. He shared many stories of the “Ancient Ones”, the Anasazi, and how their culture was passed to today’s Hopi and Navajo nations.

It was very cold in the AM, 32 degrees, and there is always a wind blowing in the canyon. So we were bundled up in all our warmest clothes.

There is only one way into and out of the canyon. There are no natural springs in the canyon, the water is run-off from snow in higher elevations.

Just a few of the many ruins of cliff dwellings in the canyon

Coyote…….resident of the canyon.

View through the windshield of the truck as it crosses water………...again!!

Horses and cattle roam free in the canyons. There are many small farms in the canyons, growing corn and beans just as the ancient peoples did.

Howling Wolf Rock

Petroglyphs: Antelope are Hopi……the horses are Navajo.

We had lunch at Mummy Cave Ruins.

Spider Rock

Back out again……..

This is one of those adventures that can only be experienced to appreciate! We took hundreds of pictures, none of which can begin to show the absolute grandeur of Canyon de Chelly. I would like to go back one day to see the canyon again.

Till next time……Just us Kids!!!!