SWS-Canyon de Chelly jeep tour

Jane arranged a Saturday tour for the four of us with a woman, Victoria, who used to be the art teacher at Rough Rock (after my time.) She grew up in and around the canyon; her father used to run tours, and she basically inherited the business and horses and I think some land from him. So we got both stories and information about the history and prehistory of the canyon, and some stories about herself and people she knew who live(d) in the canyon. The mix, and the relationship between Jane and Victoria, made the tour special for us.

We didn’t make it all the way out to Spider Rock, which was a disappointment for me personally, but given that it would have required eight hours, I rather easily gave up that notion early on. What we did do turned out to be just right for my/our energy level.

We were in a four wheel drive jeep with just enough room for the four of us plus Victoria. The first mile or two of the route is heavily churned up deep soft sand. It was obvious she knew the tracks intimately–she was picking her way quite deliberately. She kept thinking maybe she wouldn’t need the four wheel drive, and then getting stuck and having to re-engage it. Either way, it’s hard on the vehicle.

We went up the same fork we had seen from above, stopping at many of the same places, though I don’t think the correlation was exact, nor did I always recognize where we were.

On with the pictures.

Our first stop and tour speech (that she had obviously given many, many times) was (I think) at or near Tsegi to see some Anasazi petroglyphs.

If you look closely, you can see petroglyphs above her head. It was quite awhile before I could make them out, but once I saw them they were easy to spot again.

Here she is, telling us about individual petroglyphs. But don’t ask me to remember exactly what.

(Pausing here for lap time for Phantom. It seems he feels deprived.)

OK, back now.

She talked a lot about a snake petroglyph, and it took me the longest time to find it. But eventually I did. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a really good picture of it, but if you look at the bottom left below, you see it.

It is believed that the snake was a positive sacred animal/figure to the Anasazi, partly on the basis of analyzing petroglyphs and partly on the basis that it is believed that the various Pueblo Indians are the direct descendants of the Anasazi and therefore some of the culture is in common. Snakes are definitely not positive sacred animals for the Navajo, though I don’t remember why. I just remember they aren’t supposed to touch them. Victoria made a point of explaining that Anasazi means “enemy (something, I don’t remember what)” in Navajo–they emphatically do not consider themselves descendants of the Anasazi.

Victoria walked us around the rock a ways.

Some of the following may be from different places around the rock. At one point the sun went behind a cloud (really, the cloud came between us and the sun), and suddenly it was easier to make out the petroglyphs. These may be my best shots of them.

Bill, listening to Victoria.

Pat, Bill, and Jane listening to Victoria.

Some shots of the surrounding area.

Between that stop and White House, my memory is hazy. But the next several are all somewhere in between.

Anasazi ruin.

At least that one you can imagine getting up to. Several of the ones we saw on Friday on the rim drive were hundreds of feet up or down, depending on which way you tried, a sheer cliff. It’s hard to imagine getting building materials, let alone daily supplies, into them.

Here’s a close-up of one of the buildings. You can see a bunch of petroglyphs above it.

Here’s some more petroglyphs. Notice the particularly long snake.

I’m not sure exactly where this was, but it’s a view of the other side of the canyon. It only now occurs to me to wonder why all the ruins seem to be on just the one side.

I kept trying to catch a crow in flight, and finally got one.

Not quite the same effect as when you are up on the rim and they fly below you, but I’ll take it.

White House ruins was (almost) the endpoint of the trip. It’s a major rest stop as well. A number of other groups were there, and we lingered, walked around, took lots of pictures, and took care of important bodily needs.

I kept trying to capture the effect of the sheer cliff looming over everything, how massive it is, but that’s just one of those things I can’t get with a camera.

A couple of close-ups of the ruins. I think there may be some petroglyphs in there somewhere.

Pics of the surrounding landscape. This rock in particular was fascinating.

Took this one as we headed out, a short way further into the canyon.

Victoria told us stories as she drove of her “best friend”, a woman in her eighties at the time, and how Victoria had helped her round up sheep from the Russian olive thickets that were there. The park service has cut down and burned many, but we also noticed places where they are coming back. They are invasive, and very thorny. I was impressed by her stories of crawling through them to find the sheep. I’d be interested to know if she takes all the tours up,there and tells those stories, or if that was something we got because of the personal connection with Jane.

The rest of the pictures are from our drive out, in no particular order. Some of them I’ll comment on, others not, some before, some after, in the interest of getting this done and posted.

Another attempt at capturing the cliff effect.

Bill had talked about seeing pictures of Window Rock, and wondered if we’d see it (no), and spotted a medium-sized window rock in the rocks on the way to Many Farms, so when I spotted this little bitty window rock, I asked Victoria to stop so I could grab a picture.

Bill got out too, so then I got a picture of him on the other side.

Because i was on the right side of,the jeep, grabbed one more shot of the little ruins as we drove.

There are still a few sheep in the canyon. Victoria explained that these are self-shearing; that it, they actually shed their wool in the spring so they don’t have to be hand-sheared. On the other hand, someone has to go collect the wool that they’ve shed. I thought they were also attractive, with their varied coloring.

This was a LONG post, but worth it–the length reflects the wonderfulness of the experience.