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Canyon de Chelly, Arizona

[Scroll down for Canyon de Chelly photos...]

One of my favorite trips was when I zoomed out west in 1997. It was rather spontaneous brought on by a $139 round trip fare on Delta. I flew out to Albuquerque, NM on Friday night and checked into a Super 8 or something like that. The next morning, I started the road trip portion of the journey.

On that trip I "visited" (all too briefly) El Malpais National Monument, Petroglyphs National Monument, drove part of the way in to Chaco Canyon, then headed to Gallup, NM and drove up to Aztec, NM. I spent the night there. The next morning I went to Four Corners, Mexican Hat (where I almost died in quick sand), Monument Valley, Canyon de Chelley (best hike ever) then drove through a maniacal thunder and lightening storm. I returned to the airport after dark, returned the white Toyota Camry rental car, and was at the gate with a couple of hours to spare. I took the red eye and returned here very early in the morning, went home, showered, shaved, dressed and was at work by 8:30 am or whatever my work start time was. My total time from when I arrived at Albuquerque to when I left from there on the return flight was two days (49 hours).

The quick sand thing was that I was alone at Mexican Hat. It's a place named after a giant Mexican hat (sombrero) looking sandstone balanced precariously on a sandstone pedestal. It will come down one of these days - perhaps in days or years or decades... but soon in geological times. A red mud river has carved a shallow canyon next to the feature. It's probably part of the same feature that carved Monument Valley (though that's all or mostly wind carved) and it's only a few dozen miles as I recall from Monument Valley. I was walking along the river, wearing my large rim khaki hat I had purchased in Albuquerque the day before. The hat was more Indiana Jones or Aussi than a cowboy hat.

So I was walking along the river - not more than a foot or two or three from the edge. Other than the white rental Camry, the largely cloudless sky, the sand and the river and a few clumps of thistle grass, there was nothing else in evidence for miles around. All of a sudden, I noticed that I my boots were impossible to extricate and that I was sinking. Not rapidly, but with certainty. By now my ankles were buried. Of course, you can't just put your hands on the ground and push. I was still sinking as I thought of what to do. I grabbed for some of the two or so foot tall dried yellow thistle grass and pulled hard. It came right out offering no resistance nor any help that I was so looking forward to. My calves were mostly buried.

I was starting to get nervous, with thoughts of impending and final doom, but I was also chuckling to myself as I started picturing someone coming along later in the day finding nothing but my khaki hat "floating" on the sand. There was a last clump of extremely fragile looking thistle left. I grabbed it into a fascine and started pulling very, very slowly. I was still sinking and my knees were starting to get covered. If the thistle was not giving away, it was at least still holding. Eventually I was able to start extricating myself. It seemed like an eternity though it was probably no more than 30 seconds to a minute that I was pulling. I finally got out. My blue jeans were covered in mud to right above the knee. I laughed, brushed myself off the best I could, got in the Camry with wet muddy jeans and drove off to Monument Valley.

I loved Canyon de Chelley. I was able to hike to the bottom and back in 45 minutes, but that was pretty much without stopping since I knew before I headed down that there was a massive thunderstorm headed my way. So I quite literally hiked down at a good clip, got to the bottom, walked another few minutes to the "White House", took the photos here and then hiked back up very quickly. I took another photo or two from the rim, got in my car just as the first thick drops of rain started pounding my car and then drove more or less non-stop to Albuquerque. If I were to do it again, I am sure that I would allocate at least a day for Canyon de Chelley, but that's just me. NS. 12/20/2005

View from the rim...

That's me. I have no idea how I took this self-portrait. Did I set the timer, throw the camera up in the air and get lucky. Nah. Must have been a nice flat rock somewhere...

I'm heading down, but turned back for a moment to take this photo. You can tell the scale by the people. It's a pleasantly sheer drop, but not dangerous.

Look at the trail switchbacking... Reminds me of going into Carlsbad Caverns.

Ditto...

Almost at the bottom.

It's called The White House. Ansel Adams made it famous, at least to me.

It's really dramatic. It must have been something else to live with billions(?) of tons or rock above one's head.

It's about 600 feet up to the rim. Nothing huge, but still dramatic.

Detail of the White House.

I assume those are iron ore deposits that appear to be the wash down the cliff face.

Here is the view back from the top of the rim where I returned to in record time.

Photos of Canyon de Chelly, AZ. Copyright 1997. Photo by Narayan Sengupta.

Narayan Sengupta