Canyon de Chelly (pronounced d'Shay) National Monument is located on the Navajo Nation, just outside of Chinle AZ.
I only had the chance to drive along the south rim, but next trip I will try to have enough time to drive the north rim and take a tour of the canyon floor.
Inside the canyon are several ruins of cliff dwellings. You can't see them very well in this picture from the rim, but you would see it much better from within the canyon. Click on the picture for a slightly better image. Better yet, view the Ansel Adams photo of the dwellings.
One of the overlooks is called Face Rock. Since there wasn't a guide here, everyone was trying to guess which rock had the face. One couple thought the face was in the rock in the middle of the above picture (you can see the eyes, a wide nose (the left nostril appears to have a trail running out of it, and the green belt of trees is the mouth).
Cool erosion patterns - the left one is connected to the "nostril" if that's really the face.
I thought the rock in the center of this picture was Face Rock; the shadow it casts is a silhouette of a face. If you know which rock is Face Rock, please leave a comment! :-)
I found another rock that also resembled a silhouette of a face. The shadow cast by this rock reminded me of Fred Flintstone. Maybe it should be called Flintstone Rock?
I didn't see much wildlife - other than lots of crows - but there were lots of free range cattle, sheep, and horses.
The horses were all quite skinny!
The highlight was Spider Rock. This was an amazing double spire rising from the canyon floor.
I found another rock that also resembled a silhouette of a face. The shadow cast by this rock reminded me of Fred Flintstone. Maybe it should be called Flintstone Rock?
I didn't see much wildlife - other than lots of crows - but there were lots of free range cattle, sheep, and horses.
The horses were all quite skinny!
The highlight was Spider Rock. This was an amazing double spire rising from the canyon floor.
2 comments:
Haha, you could sell your photo of the rock Fred Flintstone silhouette on ebay!
Like many other tourists, I was robbed at Canyon de Chelly in 2008. My car was broken into and immediately my credit cards were put into use, etc. The card company traced the purchases ending up in Pinon at a grocery store where the thieves were on video tape. All this, and yet NOTHING was done by authorites. Why? I was in the Navajo Nation, and being a soverign state, I had no rights. State and local authorities cannot intervene - only a federal agency. Arizona leads the nation in identy theft (FTC 2006, page 15)and fraud. If you get robbed at the Canyon, you have a better chance of justice in Pakistan than you do in the Navajo Nation!
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