Canyon De Chelly

Well, I haven't posted since our trip to Bryce Canyon. In June we went to Canyon DeChelly (pronounced De Shay) but only stayed one night.

We drove up from Payson (it's north and east of us) and really enjoyed the wide open spaces of Arizona that you see once you get near to Winslow. We stopped for lunch there at the historic La Posada Hotel. This was the last operating Harvey House. The train still runs by the back door. Lunch was marvelous. The menu is a nice selection of salads, sandwiches, etc., all food organic or locally grown or both. Yummy!

The country north of Winslow is wide open! You can see the San Fransico peaks to the southwest from miles northeast of Winslow. We could also see the smoke in the sky in the east from the (then burning) Willow fire.

It was windy the day we drove up and by the time we got to Chinle, the wind was really blowing hard. It was blowing the sand across the road in such a way I felt like I was in some old western. Chinle itself is kind of bleak. The desert just feels like it comes right into town. Also, the town is "free range". For my friends back east, that means stock (horses, cattle, etc.) can freely range thru town. We saw horses grazing in the median as we headed to the canyon.

Before entering the National Park, we stopped at the Ranger Station/Welcome Center. There we saw info for a "free" camp ground, located on the park property within a stone's throw of the welcome center. I'll talk more about this at the end of this blog.

We then headed for our private campground. This National Park is a little different from your run of the mill National Park. Here, the local native Navajo are allowed to live and own property within the park. Our campground was one of these places. The site is on the south side of the canyon and we found it with very little trouble. The problem was that the owner was out with a tour group acting as guide.

An aside here too! You cannot, with one exception, travel down into the canyon by yourself. You must have a native Navajo guide take you. This can be a horse ride, jeep tour or something else, but you must have a guide.

So, since we had to wait for him to get back to show us where our site was, we decided to see some of the overlook points on the south side of the canyon. We visited 2, west of our camp site, then headed back to the camp site. We waited around for over 1/2 an hour, the decided to look at some of the other overlooks while we waited.

All of these overlooks have fantastic views of the canyon floor. In many locations you can see the abandoned cliff dwellings of "The Old Ones". You can also see the hogans of the Navajo families that still live, farm and herd, on the canyon floor. A little after 6pm we went back to the camp site and Randy met with the owner. By now, the wind was whipping so hard that we decided to rent one of the hogans the owner has built on the camp site. After looking at a couple of them, Randy rented us a medium sized hogan for one night.

We only unloaded what we needed for the night. Our air mattresses seemed necessary as the dried dirt from the roof sifted down inside making everything very dusty. So, we put down air mattresses and our sleeping bags on top. It was nice to get out of the wind!

The hogan provided a decent wind break and I cooked our supper on the camp stove. Still windy, dinner cooled on our plates before we could eat it. However, by the time I got dinner cleaned up, it was sun down and we felt comfortable building a small camp fire in the chimnea provided.

As we settled in to relax and watch the fire, the camp site dog showed up. Being a dog, he sniffed around for left overs. I did have some from supper but all packed up. If he had come 15 minutes earlier, he would have had some! Anyway, not finding anything to eat, he decided to settle down at my feet and enjoy the fire. He was friendly and well behaved and I would have petted him but he was the filthiest dog I have ever seen! Now, water is scarce in this part of the world, it's trucked in and put in cisterns so I suspect the Navajo don't feel that dog washing is an appropriate use of water.

Anyway, we enjoyed the company and the fire and when we'd had enough and the fire had burnt down, we packed it in and went to bed. The dog obligingly went away! The hogan had been thoughtfully provided with an oil lamp so Randy lit the lamp and we had plenty of light to read by.

The next morning we were up fairly early, ate our cereal and bananas and packed everything up. We were at the overlook location where we can hike down into the canyon by ourselves by 8am and on the trail by 8:10am. This trail, the White House trail, is the exception to the rule of needing a guide. The trail down the canyon wall is not too steep and switchbacks back and forth across the canyon wall.

Once down at the bottom, it goes thru a short tunnel before you come out onto the canyon floor, right in front of a farm complete with hogan. The trail takes you to the left, and across the creek that runs thru the canyon. It's only a short way to the pueblo ruins. Here, like at most of the overlooks, you run a gauntlet of locals selling carved sandstone (we actually bought some the previous day), beaded jewelry, and other such trinkets as the Navajo sell to make ends meet. I have to say, for the most part, this is all lovely work and I wish I could afford to purchase more of it.

Anyway, we politely declined their offers to look at their wares and proceeded on to the ruins. You can only view them from afar and behind a big wire fence. I brought binoculars with me and could see why the ruins had been fenced off. They were covered with graffiti. Anyway, we stayed long enough to get a good look through the binoculars and Randy's camera and for Randy to get a lot of pictures. Then it was time to hike back up.

Again, it didn't take any time to cross the canyon floor to the trail going up. Then, I took my time. It was hot, the trail mostly in the sun, and going up seems so much steeper than when you go down. Anyway, taking my time, we were still back up at the parking area by 9:15am. We chatted briefly with a couple about to descend. They asked how long it took and I told them we took our time and were still back up at the parking lot in an hour. They were satisfied with that answer and we all said goodbye.

So, the major trip attraction behind us, we decided to see the other viewpoints. We went to the farthest eastern point overlook, called the Spider Rock point. This may be the 2nd best spot on the canyon. While you don't get to go down into the canyon, this is a lovely trail along the canyon rim allowing really good views of Spider Rock, one of the more famous points in the canyon after the White House ruins. Of course Randy got a lot of pictures.

Then we went on to the other south rim viewpoints we had not seen the day before and then went to the North Rim. There are 3 viewpoints on the North Rim and we started with the nearest. The last one was the best, I think, on the North Rim. A very sad story about the Spanish massacaring women and children who had climbed as far up the cliff wall as they could to get away from the Spanish soldiers was posted on a story sign. There was also along a side trail, marvelous views of the canyon in the other direction.

At all of these viewpoints were signs that told us to mind our children and pets, the canyon floor was 700 feet below! Many viewpoints had no fences, you had to use common sense to not fall off the edge!

We finished the last viewpoint about 11am. We took that opportunity to make a sandwich each and eat it. Then, having completed all of the fun that could be had for no money, we decided to go home. On the way out, I asked Randy to turn into the campground we saw at the entrance. Sure enough, there was no one at the camp ground gate. You really could stay free. It was a nice campground too! Lots of trees, nice bathrooms and shower facilities and just outside the gate, the Trading Post inn and restaurant. My personal recommendation is to stay at this campground then if it's full, the camp site we used.

Anyway, we were home by dinner time and glad to be out of the wind. I recommend this trip to anyone. I'm sure we would have enjoyed taking a guided hike, horse ride or jeep ride to some of the other points on the canyon floor and getting the benefit of the guide's stories about the canyon but, when on a budget, enjoy what you can!