After stopping at the Hubbell Trading Post, we drove to Chinle, AZ to visit Canyon de Chelly(Shay) and take a tour. This amazing place had been on my bucket list....but no more;)! I knew the canyon had a lot to offer but I did not know how beautiful it was or how long the canyon is and how many ruins there are there. Located in the Navajo Nation, you must tour the canyon with a Navajo guide.
We choose a 3 hour tour which, of course, was not near enough time. We wanted to do at least the south rim drive as well with 7 turn outs. Just not enough hours in the day some times;)
Our Navajo guide, DJ(David James), lives in the canyon in the summer and "up top" in the winter as do the other 40 some families that still live in the canyon.
One of my interests in see the canyon was the amazing pictographs I had seen on line and heard about. I was a bit disappointed there as you cannot get close enough to the ruins, they are fenced off, to get a good view or good shot of many of them. We saw just a few of the 700 known ruins that still exist. Once there were thousands.
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| White House ruin across bottom of canyon..... |
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| close up of White House ruin |
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| in the alcove across canyon is another ruins |
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| Sliding House ruins across canyon at bottom... |
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| you can see why it is called sliding house, built on a steep slope it has been slowly sliding down over the centuries |
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| the autumn colors added just another touch of beauty to the canyon |
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| look at the horse riders in relation to the cliff dwelling |
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| there are pictographs all over the ceiling of this alcove! |
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| Spider Rock, refers to Navajo Spider Woman |
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| Antelope House ruins |
Beautiful! Thanks for taking us there!
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure! Wish we could have seen a lot more of it!
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