Back in May (2013) I wandered around the Canyon de Chelly National Monument in Arizona with most of my family. It’s rare that we get together like this, but the trip had a special meaning to my father, who has since passed. It was a special place for him to see and I’m glad he was able to. Though the canyon is a U.S. National Monument, it sits in the heart of the 24,078 square mile, West Virginia-sized Navajo Nation, which itself spans across the corners of four states; Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. Anyone visiting the site can drive around the rim, but to see the canyon floor, you need a Native guide and a permit, which makes the choice of getting one or not, really easy.
With this being a family trip that needed to accommodate a range of health and comfort needs, we stayed just outside the canyon at the Holiday Inn. The canyon was basically just down the road. Also just down the road, between the hotel and canyon was the Cottonwood Campground, where those able to park an RV or pitch a tent can sleep under Arizona’s stars.
When it came to choosing a Jeep Tour, I did a bit of comparison, ultimately going with Beauty Way Jeep Tours, and everyone was unanimously happy with how it went. Our guide Delbert was great; laid back and informative. His family is one of few who still have farmland inside the canyon. If you’re up for more of a hiking and camping experience, there are some great looking options to camp overnight in the park, so definitely look them up. As with the Jeep Tour, hiking and camping require you to have a guide and permit to on the land.
[singlepic id=65 w= h= float=none]Within Canyon De Chelly there are a number of ruins of past dwellings. Deceptive to the eye, due in part to the fact that they were built so high up on the canyon walls, these groups of dwellings look small, but would easily house several dozen people and more. Adding up these populations from all around the canyon, they amount to a small town.
One of the most popular dwellings to see is called the White House Ruins. A large reason for their popularity is that they sit at the end of the only trail you can take down to the canyon floor without having a Native guide and permit. They also built structures here uncharacteristically at ground level.
I took some photos of the White House Ruins midday, then later on just before sunset, walked the quickly descending two mile trail from the canyon rim, down to the ruins with my brother and one of my sisters. Everyone else on the trail at that time of day were Navajo. Some blazed their own trails, running quickly down the steep, sandstone canyon grades. If the same grades were of granite, the feat would have been nearly, if not entirely impossible.
[singlepic id=175 w= h= float=none]One of the canyon floor’s most striking features is how quiet it is. In the middle of the day the stone walls reflected and amplified the voices of tourists and merchants, carrying on among themselves and the craft vendors. Behind me, they should have been too far away to hear at all, but the natural acoustics made it sound like they were conversing just 20 feet ahead. At sunset, with all the vendors and tourists gone, I was far happier to listen in solitude to the amplified chorus of crickets and birds.
http://alltrails.com/parks/us/arizona/canyon-de-chelly-national-monument