Tuesday, August 20, 2013

After All This Time

For 12 years now, we have driven back and forth from either South Dakota to Phoenix or from Colorado to Phoenix and there is one place that I have always wanted to see and have never taken the time to. We always seem to be in a hurry to get from Point A to Point B and/or I always have horses with me and cannot afford to stop for very long.

This time I looked at the map and decided that taking a different route would not only be a straight shot from home to where I was going...it would take me right by this haloed place I had always wanted to see.

Canyon De Chelly (pronounced De Shay)...













There is no doubt Canyon De Chelly is impressive. Pictures cannot convey the magnitude of the grandeur or the depth of the canyon. I only got to see the north rim, thanks to a ton of road construction along the way that cost me hours of daylight. Soooo....

I guess I will have to make the time to go back again sometime soon, so I can take the south rim and hike down into the canyon to look at the ruins. But at least I can say that I saw some of it. :-)

I will say, if you ever go and just want to look at the canyon from above...Take binoculars. The depth of the canyon is unbelievable and everything below is just specks without a whole lot of zoom. LOL

Another thing I might add is that if you are really interested in the ancient native culture and want to see a lot of ruins close up...Mesa Verde outside of Cortez is a much more educational and interesting place to visit. Megan and I spent 2 days in Mesa Verde and still didn't get to see all of it, plus there was a ton of information posted everywhere. I suspect that the way to go at Canyon De Chelly is to go on a paid-for guided tour...And I have to admit that the thought of taking a horseback trip up the canyon does sound like fun...so hopefully I can do that in the near future.

The sun set all too quickly though and I was the only one up on the north rim...I'm not going to lie...I got a little creeped out and hauled butt to get out of there. So down the road I headed. I still had a few hundred miles to go....

11 comments:

Funder said...

WOW. I want to see that place!

Cut-N-Jump said...

GORGEOUS! I have yet to see it up close and personal like, but the photos are always beyond words.

Nuzzling Muzzles said...

Well, I can tell you that you got there when it had some of the best lighting for your photos. I haven't been there, but went to Mesa Verde as a kid. I was too young to be allowed to climb the ladders. With how accident prone I am now, I don't know if I'd take a chance. I just remember my mother and I standing on the sidelines while my brother father climbed all over the place.

Shirley said...

Wow, I can see why you wanted to visit there- what a beautiful place and a natural place for shelter and protection, I can see why there are ruins there. Beautiful!

BrownEyed Cowgirl said...

NM-There is a large number of ruins in Mesa Verde that do not entail up and down hikes. They located many sites on the Mesa with satellite systems and then a few years ago a fire went through the park and uncovered even more locations. Some of the 'villages' on the mesa are more extensive than the cliff dwellings.

The big thing about Canyon De Chelly is it is supposed to be the oldest continuously inhabited Native American 'area' in existence. You can see some of the 'fields' in the pictures, but as far as I could tell, it did not look like this particular area was currently being farmed.

Genie said...

Isn't Canyon De Chelly awesome! I highly recommend taking a guided horseback tour and plan to stay an entire day, at least. If you don't have time to do that, at least do the White Canyon hike on the south rim. It is about 1 1/2 miles down and a short hike across the bottom to the ruins. Be sure to take plenty of water, because the hike back up seems a LOT steeper than the hike down. I suggest going in late September or early October when the colors are at their peak and it is cool enough to hike comfortably.

Sherry Sikstrom said...

I think the pictures did a pretty good job! I got butterflies!!! Wow!

BrownEyed Cowgirl said...

Thanks Genie. I am very much hoping to get to do that very thing this fall....or maybe next spring. There are a lot of All-Indian rodeos in that area in the spring and I would really like to hit some of them. I'm on the hunt for the perfect squash-style turquoise necklace and I refuse to buy it any place but on the rez. ;-)

Laura said...

very neat! I would love to visit some places like that and do a riding tour and some hiking. Put it on the list of places to go someday when I have the time and money!

Nuzzling Muzzles said...

Interesting. Then I'll have to return to MV some day. We're talking I visited there in the 1960's. Hee hee.

Crystal said...

Oh I have seen pics of that place and thought it was super cool, I would love to see it too. (although I am glad you said how it was pronounced, I thought it was "shelly")