Canyon de Chelly, Arizona. If you REALLY like red rocks.

This is NOT Canyon de Chelly - it's Shiprock, which we passed by on our way from Bandolier to Canyon de Chelly.  Shiprock is a monstrous rock emerging from the earth in the far northwest corner of New Mexico.  For the Navajo it's a sacred place. For Anglos, it apparently looked like an ocean-going ship - hence the name. 

The route we took to get to Canyon de Chelly avoided the main highways and wound through some beautiful country, over mountain ranges and through red rocks like these.  It was a gorgeous day!  

When we got to Canyon de Chelly it was late afternoon, so we took a 16-mile drive along the South Rim of the 2-pronged canyon. We wanted to see the canyon from several overlooks as the sun set. The sandstone cliffs rise to over 1,000 feet above the floor in places, and the muddy-red Chinle Wash wanders along the green canyon floor - an oasis of cottonwoods, willows, roughly planted fields and small wandering herds of sheep and horses.  

This photo gives an idea of the height of the rim and the flatness of the land above the canyon. 

Due to the heavy and frequent rains this year, the canyon is very green at the base.   To get an idea of the immensity of these canyon walls, if you look closely you can see a tiny white house in the lower part of the photo just left of center. About 25 Navajo families still live in the canyon and farm it in the summer. The land has been passed down from mother to daughter, as is the Navajo custom.  

Some of the sandstone wears away in round or oval patterns that resemble huge stacked or strewn clamstones 

There had been rain earlier in the afternoon and there was a gorgeous rainbow, followed by this colorful sunset

And in the opposite direction, after the sun had set behind this tree, the sky was different, but equally beautiful.

That was last evening. Today we toured the canyon floor by vehicle with a Navajo guide who has lived in the canyon for over 70 years. You cannot visit the canyon floor without a guide. We had an interesting day, which I'll tell you about in the next post.