Saturday April 20, 2019

Road video and map – Gallup, NM to Chinle, AZ

Today’s primary focus was Canyon de Chelly National Monument, a spectacular triple canyon area near Chinle, AZ that is part of the Navajo Nation and preserves ancestral Native American sites as old as 5,000 years. The land in the monument is entirely owned by the Navajo Tribal Trust and Navajo families live in and farm the canyon floor. It is cooperatively managed with the National Park Service. There are scenic drives on the north and south rims which are public roads but, if you want to enter the canyon, you must be accompanied by an authorized Navajo guide.

With this in mind I booked a 3-hour guided tour of the canyon floor for 1PM. This gave me time to stop at Window Rock, which is the capital of the Navajo Nation, to visit the Navajo National Museum and the geological feature that gives the town its’ name. The museum is very different from other Native American museums in that the traditions and history of the tribe are presented mainly through stories, photographs  and illustrative artwork. The only physical artifact was a copy of the treaty of 1868 that established the Navajo as a sovereign nation within the US. There was no clothing, tools, rugs or pottery and no dioramas.

I had enough time to take the long route to Chinle (where the tours depart from) which took me along the north rim drive of Canyon de Chelly and everything was working out perfectly – until the tour was cancelled. When I had checked the tour website early in the week there was a notice that all tours were postponed due to flooding in the canyon but, on Wednesday, that notice disappeared and the booking form became available. Unfortunately, the water had risen again overnight and, in places, was up to the wing mirrors of the Jeeps they use. I had little option but to spend the afternoon driving the south rim scenic drive. Around 3 o’clock the weather turned bad so I called it a day. I was disappointed but a tour group had been stuck in the canyon for five hours earlier in the week and it was simply not safe.

The Window Rock formation in the Navajo Nation’s capital of the same name.
Honored in a memorial nearby are the Navajo Code Talkers. Over 400 warriors helped the US keep military communications secure in WWII using code that was developed from the Navajo language.
Canyon de Chelly is one of those places that you just have to see as photos cannot represent it well. Despite that I’ll post a few anyway. This is from a viewpoint on the north rim overlooking Massacre Cave.
The junction of the north and south canyons as seen from the south rim.
This rock pinnacle, called Spider Rock is at the eastern end of the south rim and is over 800 feet high.
This is a view from the Sliding House Overlook taken at 2:53 PM.
And, just 20 minutes later, the view from Tsegi Overlook. This area is near the entrance to the canyon and the water level is clearly pretty high.