But Henry and I didn't want those four days to be our entire desert southwest vacation. We spent a few days before, and a few after, touring some other wonderful places in that area. If you look at a recreation map of the Four Corners area (referring to the meeting of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico) it's astonishing how many wonderful sites are in relatively close proximity. We didn't have time to see them all, but we crammed as much into our "extra time" as we could...in the process visiting all four states and, technically, another "country"* as well.
Our first stop was at Canyon de Chelly National Monument in Arizona, which we'd heard glowing reports of from many quarters. We weren't disappointed in its scenery, which I'll review for you in upcoming posts. But, to finish up with the ancient art theme, I'll tell you first about the cliff dwellings we saw there: gorgeous examples of domestic architecture, circa 1100.
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| White House ruin |
This shot can give you a better idea of the scale of the structures—it was a large settlement!—as well as illustrating a modern cultural phenomena: jewelry vendors.
The White House ruin is on the south side of the canyon; on the north side is another impressive structure that we saw from a distance: Antelope House. Can you find it in this panoramic shot?
*A good-sized chunk of this area (especially in Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico) is in the Navajo Nation's territory, as any reader of Tony Hillerman's books can tell you. This includes Canyon de Chelly, the left bank of the San Juan during our paddle, and other sites I'll show you later, such as Monument Valley. So, in a strictly administrative law sense, we did visit another country on this trip!
More recent building has taken place along the trail, too, making the hike much more doable than it would have been without these improvements. Here's one of two tunnels carved through inconveniently-placed rock outcroppings:
Overall the hike was lots of fun, with photo opps galore all the way down to the Canyon floor and back up, and I'll show you more of these views in a later post.
The White House ruin is on the south side of the canyon; on the north side is another impressive structure that we saw from a distance: Antelope House. Can you find it in this panoramic shot?
Spotting these cleverly-positioned structures across the canyon is a skill you have to work at a little, but once you get the hang of where to look it comes a little easier. Here's a zoom shot that shows Antelope House in more detail:
Incidentally, at a couple of the overlooks in CdC, they've implemented a very ingenious low-tech device to help people find the ruins (I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who has difficulty with this!). There are metal tubes mounted in such a way that they point right to the ruins. Thanks, CdC! These should be required at overlooks everywhere.
After our paddling adventure, another national monument was on our itinerary. This one is in Utah, Natural Bridges NM. In addition to the emponymous natural rock features, they also have an impressive cliff dwelling, Horse Collar ruin. Test your new dwelling-finding skills on the photo below:
Unfortunately, we had even less time at Natural Bridges than Canyon de Chelly and were only able to do one of their hikes, and it didn't involve a cliff dwelling. More about that scenery, though, later.
(Another bummer from our time crunch was having to missing an astronomy program at NBNM, which was the first designated International Dark Sky Park. Such a cool claim to fame! And what makes it worth another visit sometime.)
The amazing abundance of archaeological sites in this area means that not all of them are in these nationally-protected areas. There were a few just off Highway 95 between Natural Bridges and Blanding, Utah. Unfortunately, we only had time to stop at one (note the low sun in the photo): Mule Canyon ruin. As you see from the link, there is more to it than what we saw by the roadside (where the structures are partially restored) but, again, time was working against us:
As interesting as the cultural sites are, we were probably more overwhelmed by the natural scenery of the Four Corners region. I'll spend the next few posts showing you some of these gorgeous and iconic vistas.
*A good-sized chunk of this area (especially in Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico) is in the Navajo Nation's territory, as any reader of Tony Hillerman's books can tell you. This includes Canyon de Chelly, the left bank of the San Juan during our paddle, and other sites I'll show you later, such as Monument Valley. So, in a strictly administrative law sense, we did visit another country on this trip!
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