Your email address will not be published. I wanted to get a more in-depth appreciation of the history, culture, and beauty of this unique place so I joined an Arizona Highways PhotoScape tour that hired Navajo Photographer Leroy DeJolie and Adams family to drive us about the canyon and teach about its meaning to his Adams family and the Din, as the Navajo call themselves. The visitor center is 3 miles (4.8 km) from Route 191 in Chinle, AZ. Pictographs such as these, done with charcoal and other natural pigments, are particularly vulnerable to the ravages of time. Mummy Cave ruin, in the Canyon del Muerto branch of the Canyon de Chelly canyon system. Read our Planning Your Visit guide for details on how to visit the park. Click the pictures to open the pages. ANavajo guide can take you into the canyon in their SUV, or, if you prefer, you can join a guided hike, or a trail ride on horseback. Most visitors to Canyon de Chelly National Monument focus the bulk of their attention on the South Rim Drive, but in my view, your trip simply wont be complete if you dont take in the North Rim Drive as well. Canyon de Chelly: Part 4: The Road to Spider Rock. In fact, they migrated. Help me keep going all day.. Collections; Project #ShowUs; Creative Insights; EDITORIAL; VIDEO. The Navajo people still have a mystical bond to this redstone canyon that cuts an almost tropical path of trees and flowers through the desert. Times change. Permits issued by Navajo Park Recreation Department, must be signed by group leader and guide. The Navajo have been here for hundreds of years. What those ancients left behind is the most extraordinary concentration of cliff dwellings and rock art panels to be found anywhere in the desert southwest. . 3 Hour Tour (most popular) This tour will take you into Canyon de Chelly, where the first stop is Kokopelli Cave. Youll need a couple of hours to do it justice, depending on how much time you spend at each of the different overlooks. Canyon de Chelly National Monument PO Box 588 Chinle, AZ 86503 (928) 674-5500. Winter is too cold, Daniel explains. Nearby is Massacre Cave being where Navajo women and children were killed by the Spanish in 1805. That's why Cottonwood Campground is the perfect place to set up basecamp to explore this epic region of eastern Arizona. Along the way you pass the Ledge Ruin, Antelope House Ruin, Navajo Fortress, and Standing Cow Ruin, along with some extraordinary rock art. Located inside the Navajo Nation, this site has some amazing rock formations. 300 feet above the canyon floor, there are two deep alcoves filled with ruins, and on a wide ledge between them, a large, multi-story . Mount Cook National Park: A Whisper of Peace, Alcatraz to Pitcairn: An Island Odyssey 2, Alcatraz to Pitcairn: An Island Odyssey 1. The visitor center is open daily all year from 8:00am to 5:00pm, except for Christmas Day. Photo by Donna Hull. The White House Ruins Trail Visit Canyon De Chelly from above: The Overlooks along the Edges Both sides of Daniels family have lived in the canyon for three generations, growing corn and tending orchards of apple, peach, pear and plum. At Standing Cow Ruin, named for another Little Lamb painting of a cow, you can see pictographs of the Spanish soldiers, one wearing a red cape with a cross, and two white circles, which Daniel says tells the story that it took two days to kill the 115 people. For more ITKT travel stories about North America, Your email address will not be published. There's even a calendar of free Ranger led programs. More to Discover Near Canyon de Chelly National Monument. That drive requires another hour and a half, bare minimum, so if youre going to do both, you should play it safe, and set aside half a day. These canyons were cut by streams with headwaters in the Chuska Mountains just to the east of the monument. To continue reading the post, click the button below: A Guide to Canyon de Chelly National Monument. Adam told me that the Dina believe recent DNA analysis prove his people had Anasazi ancestors. Canyon De Chelly National Monument is a must-visit for rock-art seekers-it's one of the few sites in the state where you can see pictographs along with petroglyphs. Since most of the park is inaccessible without a tour guide, this is a perfect way for the public to enjoy the splendorous views. Visitors can travel the rim drives and view many of the major attractions of the canyon. Junction Ruins near where the south and north forks of the canyon divide. 3 First Ruin. Women and children hid in a cave, high up the canyon wall, but the Spanish discovered them. One has a cross on the front of his serape probably depicting a Catholic padre. Please check your time. Click any of the photos above to stop the slide show and expand the images to full screen. Visiting Canyon de Chelly, located on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, has been my old dream. I was probably getting a bit starry-eyed at that point. The haunting notes of a flute player nearby made the experience of visiting these ruins more spiritual that just viewing the canyon from the viewpoints. The best rock art in the canyon is located on private land but Adam was able to get us special permission to visit Spring Canyon. They were between 4 and 5 feet tall and lived 30 to 35 years. It is a living breathing time capsule that is brought to life by the people who still live within its towering rock walls. This wall was coated in white plaster, decorated with a yellow band, and it is this white wall, which can still be seen, that inspired the name La Casa Blanca, the White House, to this ancient dwelling that has endured in this place for nearly a thousand years. The canyon holds mountain lion, black bear, mule deer and elk. The canyon is filled with juniper, pinon pine, oak, box elder and coyote willow. When I have a lot in my head, a lot of bills to pay, I come and just work, he said. At the beginning of our trip, we asked Sylvia to show us her favorite petroglyphs, along with the usual ruins and rock formations, and she did not disappoint. Canyon de Chelly, is another mispronunciation of a word that means canyon of rock. Basic three hour tour includes Antelope House Ruin in Canyon Del Muerto and the White House Ruin in Canyon de Chelly. The north fork is called Canyon del Muerto, or Canyon of Death. Kokopelli and the Lightning Spear . The Navajo call it Where Two Fell Off as legend has it that a Spanish soldier who climbed up to the cave was grabbed by a Navajo woman and both fell to the deaths on the canyon floor. When Col. A horse also provides the perfect vantage for taking in the towering rock walls and ancient ruins. The South Rim drive is a 36 mile round trip, from the Welcome Center to the Spider Rock Overlook and back again, making multiple stops in between. The Kokopelli Cave itself is a large, open cavern that is perfect for exploring. He tells how the Anasazi came here and began growing the three sisters, corn, squash and beans. Route 64 follows the North Rim, and provides access to three more overlooks, with excellent views into the branch known as Canyon del Muerto. Mountain bikers and intrepid road cyclists (there are many unpaved stretches) can follow the 130-mile loop road around the top of the peach-colored canyon, touring through lots of desert scrub and dusty secluded outposts and stopping at beautiful overlooks at White House Ruin, Mummy Cave, Spider Rock, and other iconic sites in Navajo country. Are you a veteran road tripper who loves grand vistas, or someone who's never done it, but whould love to try? On a longer ride into the canyon, pass through small forests of cottonwood and Russian olive trees and across various . Our guide and driver, Daniel, grew up in the canyon and has been giving tours there for more than 28 years. Media in category "Canyon de Chelly petroglyphs" The following 22 files are in this category, out of 22 total. The cave was occupied until about 1300 when Puebloan life in Canyon de Chelly abruptly ended. A pictograph of Spanish conquistadors, note the red cape and cross, memorialize their massacre of 115 Navajos. 300 feet above the canyon floor, there are two deep alcoves filled with ruins, and on a wide ledge between them, a large, multi-story pueblo, partially reconstructed, and quite impressive. The Pueblo people hunted and farmed in the canyon more than 1,000 years ago, and some Navajo, who settled the canyon in the 1700s, still reside here today. Dirt roads inside the monument lead to homes and farms. I recommend Adam Teller at Antelope House Tours at www.canyondechelly.net/. Four tribes can trace their history to the Anasazi: the Hopi, Pueblo, Acoma, and Zuni. Its not really on the way to anywhere else, very much off the beaten path, and yet there are as many as 800,000 visitors in an average year, making this exceedingly isolated canyon one of the top ten most visited of all the National Monuments in the United States. There is no water, no electricity. There is no entrance fee at Canyon de Chelly National Monument, and no booth or gate controlling access, so the visitation numbers mentioned abovehundreds of thousands per yearare simply an estimate, based on the volume of traffic on the two highways running through the monument. It is named for the white plaster that coated the long back wall. Kokopelli Cave Horseback riders at Petroglyph Rock High Panel at Petroglyph Rock After checking out the petroglyphs at Petroglyph Rock our guide gave us a little demonstration on throwing an atlatl. Location in Arizona: Northeastern. They do have accurate numbers on the visitors who join a tour into the canyon, because that activity requires a permit. Canyon de Chelly National Monument was established in 1931 and is one of the longest continuously inhabited landscapes in North America. A severe drought that began in the 1200's is thought to have led to its abandonment. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. The sun silhouetted the cottonwoods as we drove past a mare nursing her foal. Do not use IR 7, which is unpaved and unmaintained between Sawmill and the Spider Rock turnoff. Shed say, Spider Woman is going to come and get you. Just around the bend the canyon opened up into an area wider than any other wed seen, and right in the middle was a monolithic block of sandstone known as Dog Rock. Get our travel tips Delivered to your inbox. Earth Art Mountain Lion Sticker. This hotel is 4.6 mi (7.5 km) from Chinle Comprehensive Health Care Facility and 6.1 mi (9.9 km) from White House Overlook and Trail. They say the canyon has a lot of energy.. Considered one of the undisputed Wonders of the World, the Grand Canyon draws visitors from every corner of the globe, and not too many of them go away disappointed, because the Grand Canyon is one of those places that actually lives up to the hype. Kokopelli Cave is a beautiful canyon located in the heart of the American Southwest. We stop at the White House, the good one Daniel says, which was built and lived in from 1060 A.D. to 1275 A.D. The Anasazi inhabited the area some thousands of years ago. It was named for two mummies that were discovered here by an archaeological expedition in 1882. The French Translation of the park brochure is also available. The Navajo, who are not related, are Athabascan, migrating from Asia across the Bering Strait and settling in the canyon about 1500 or 1600. If you want to explore any further, youll either need to take a ranger-led hike or hire a Navajo guide. Guides will often create custom experiences. Canyon de Chelly National Monument One of the Southwest's most fascinating national monuments, Canyon de Chelly (pronounced "deh SHAY," derived from the Navajo word, Tseyi, meaning "among the canyons" or "among the rocks") lies in the heart of the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona. Canyon de Chelly (DShay) is a geological marvel of the first order, a hidden treasure, tucked away in a remote section of the Navajo Reservation in northeastern Arizona. From c. 750 to 1300, the Anasazi, or ancient ones, started building multi-storied villages with rectangular stone houses up in the cliffs. Occupied for a thousand years, from around 300 A.D. until 1300 A.D. Antelope House was formally excavated in the early 1970s, by archaeologists working with the National Park Service. The park is working on getting translations of the brochure in other languages. There were hunters, deer, birds, handprints, and more. There are also 3 motels with dining and gift shops. Adam told the story of how medicine men would throw corn pollen into the face of the deer. That drive requires another hour and a half, bare minimum, so if youre going to do both, you should play it safe, and set aside half a day. The South Rim drive is a 36 mile round trip, from the Welcome Center to the Spider Rock Overlook and back again, making multiple stops in between. There's nothing like a good road trip. 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