On Nov. 1 I drove north from Cameron to Navajo National Monument. There I took a couple short hikes, one leading to an overlook on the Betatakin ruins dating back to the 1250AD or so.
I discovered the monument has a nice campground with running water, flush toilets in a very clean, heated bathroom - and it's free! So I picked a nice site with a view that justified the campground name of Sunset View.
It was pretty cold that night (32 degrees) and they don't allow fires, so I turned in early and cuddled up in my down sleeping bag. I woke up in the morning and got out of my tent, heading for that heated bathroom. Oh no! The door's locked! I knew this was too good to be true - I'm thinking they've closed the restrooms for the season. Then a man comes to put up signs saying the water's been shut off, and says it's just for the day, they're doing some work on the water line and it should be back on by that night. Of course, with a nice rest room with drinking water right there, I hadn't bothered to fill all my water bottles the night before, so I was thinking I barely had enough water for my morning coffee. But then I realized I still had my 5-gallon water jug about a third full from Grand Canyon, so figured I had enough water, and stuck to my day's plan and headed north to see Monument Valley. It's a Navajo Tribal Park on the Utah/Arizona border and is one of those places that it's just hard to believe is real.
The park has a 17 mile dirt road thru it with a lot of scenic stops - very bumpy in places, but worth every bump.
Then I headed back to the campground at Navajo National Monument. As I pulled in I saw ditches unfilled and started to worry about the water situation. Uhoh - the "water turned off" signs were still up, it's about 5:30 Friday evening and the workers are all gone. I'm thinking there's no hope of water over the weekend. I briefly debated moving on, but it was getting dark, and I'd signed up for a ranger-led hike to the ruins the next morning, so I decided to stay. Then 15 minutes or so later I here the heavy equipment start up. I'm such a pessimist - the workers must have just taken a dinner break. And around 7:30 or 8pm, the maintenance guy comes by and unlocks the restrooms - the water's back on! Yeah!!! Amazing how much you miss modern conveniences and appreciate them when you get them back.
I had another nice, but chilly night. In the morning at 10am I went with a group on a ranger-led hike down to Betatakin ruins that I'd seen from the overlook the other day. You can only go to the ruins on a guided tour to protect them. There were about 10 of us in the group and we hiked down into Tsegi canyon to the ruins. There were petroglyphs!
We got to go into the ruins, being careful not to touch the walls. It was neat to see them close up and the ranger told us all about how the ancestral Puebloans lived there.
The trek back up was steep - 750 feet elevation gain, with lots of steps and switchbacks. And of course this is all at 7000 or so feet elevation, where there really isn't enough air to start with. I huffed and I puffed, and was definitely the last one up, but I made it. I'm definitely getting in better shape with all the high-elevation hiking I've been doing, but I'm really regretting being such a couch potato the last couple years. So many of the hikes in this area are down into canyons. Unlike a mountain, where you go up as far as you can, here you get down and then have no choice but to make it back up. But there's always wonderful scenery to stop and admire while you catch your breath. I didn't get the best angle on this, but this rock looks a lot like ET.
On Saturday's hike I met a nice couple, Michelle and Nop, from Holland who are spending a year traveling, several months in the US. They invited me for a pancake breakfast Sunday morning - a yummy treat since I usually just do cereal and milk for breakfast. I'm slowly getting more into camp cooking, but the clean-up without a kitchen sink is such a hassle that I tend to stick with simple.
Then I packed up and drove over to Canyon de Chelly National Monument and settled into Cottonwood Campground there. Monday I toured Canyon de Chelly, which has a lot of ruins and is a beautiful place.
The canyon floor is inhabited and farmed by Navajos, so to protect their privacy as well as the ruins, tourists aren't allowed in most of it without hiring a Navajo guide (at $15 an hour, 3 hour minimum, too pricey for my budget). But there are a lot of scenic overlooks, like Spider Rock above, and there's one place where you can hike down to Whitehouse Ruins.
Another hike down into a canyon, but again great scenery to admire on the way back up.
I spent the night at the Canyon de Chelly campground. Today I went to Petrified Forest National Park.
I saw lots more petroglyphs.
The scenery is unworldly.
There are lots of petrified logs around - that's what all those little dots are in this photo.
Up close it really looks like wood, but it's rock.
Tonight I'm staying in a Best Western in Holbrook, Arizona. Aaah, the luxury of a bed, a tv, wifi, and most of all a shower. Thanks again to all my friends at the vigil. Tomorrow I'm off to Homolovi Ruins State Park, outside Winslow, Arizona.
I was getting sick of packing up every couple days so I settled in and stayed a while. There were a lot of nice short hikes in the park and some nice sites to see in the area. One day I went to Tuzigoot National Monument, another Native American Ruin. Another day I drove over to the V-V site, which has amazing petroglyphs. These ones look like turtles but are actually horned toads, which is the symbol of the water clan that was responsible for calendar keeping. The squiggle ending in a spiral is actually a solar calendar -there's a rock gap that creates a sun dagger across the rock art that lines up with the sharp bends on the solstices and the right days of the season to plant corn.
Today I drove from Dead Horse Ranch to Prescott where I'm staying in the Hotel Saint Michael. Had a yummy burger and pint of IPA for dinner at the Prescott Brewing Company. Tomorrow I'm off to Joshua Tree National Park.
