Chaco Canyon National Historic Park, New Mexico

Chaco Canyon is located in the middle of nowhere at the end of a 13 mile bad road. Maybe that's why few people go there. But, if you are interested in the Ancient Puebloan culture of North America, you should go there. We spent considerable time earlier in our trip exploring cliff dwellings in Arizona and Utah, now we were in the region of the ancient great houses.Chaco Canyon is believed to have been more a cultural center than a residential center and it is widely disputed as to how many people lived there. As our Pueblo Bonito guide told us, "What we know is that people lived here, and they built big buildings". The rest is conjecture. Chaco canyon is a flat canyon bottom between low mountains. It is very dry and sparse. The campground is a short distance from the great houses, under the canyon wall.We were fortunate to meet our friends Linda & Jim and Sue & Roger from Montana who had been to Chaco before and knew the things we had to see. First on the list was a tour of Pueblo Bonito, the best restored of the great houses.Note the many round Kivas within the walls. Here's a closer look at the floor of one of the Kivas in Pueblo Bonito.Pueblo Bonito was constructed in stages between 850 and 1150 AD and was abandoned around 1200 ADThe tours took us through the ruins and into many of the several hundred rooms of the great house.Having friends along gave us a chance to socialize again since leaving Whazoo and Lynn in Arizona and it was wonderful to spend some time with good friends.The next day we took a hike along the mesa top for views into the canyon from above which gives one a much better idea of the scope of these great houses.Not to mention a chance to stretch our legs and brush up on our canyoneering skills.
As has been the norm on this trip, there was lots of wildlife and we were again fortunate to see many desert blooms.On day three we biked out a canyon road to a less rehabilitated great house called "Wijiji. Once again the amazing workmanship of these buildings was obvious. You have to be aware when you look at this that it was built over a thousand years ago and is still standing 800 years after it was abandoned.We could even see where different styles (perhaps different workmen or varied loads of rock) were seamlessly integrated into the walls.On our last day we hiked farther up the canyon to see some petroglyphs and pictographs on the canyon wall.Here's a link to the National Park Service website if you would like more information on Chaco Canyon Petroglyphs. Our final hike was a short one to see Casa Rincanada, the largest Kiva in the canyon. This Kiva stands alone on a hillside a short distance from Pueblo Bonito and (who knows why) has it's two entrances perfectly aligned East to West.
NEXT: Bandolier National Monument & Santa Fe, New Mexico

Navajo Lake - Sims Mesa Campground, New Mexico

When we arrived at Navajo Lake in northwest New Mexico we went to the west side of the lake and found a busy state park with lot's of power boats and many houseboats.It looked a little bit too busy for us so we continued on to the east side to the Sims Mesa Campground and arrived at sunset in an impending lightning storm and found a wonderful campsite.Our campsite was nestled in some juniper trees right on the shore of the lake in a quiet bay.Navajo lake was a sandstone canyon that was damned sometime in the late 1950s to create the lake. The lakeshore is virtually all public land and there is little development on the lake. The water is clear and deep (396 feet at it's depest point) and perfect for kayaking. Our first day we kayaked south to a narrow canyon on the east side of the lake.There were many side canyons to explore and with the storm clouds past we kayaked about 15 miles. We found these cliff swallow squatters up one of the side canyons.After a spectacular sunset we slept like babies to the sounds of the lake and forest. Pretty good accomodations for $10 a night.The next morning we hit the water again for a look at the west side of the lake. The west side is more open than the narrow canyons of the east and has beaches here and there for picnicing or swimming.We got to explore only a small portion of the 15,000 acre lake and will revisit on another trip some day.
NEXT: Chaco Canyon National Historic Park, New Mexico

The Grand Canyon, North Rim, Arizona

While the North Rim is only about 10 miles from the South Rim it's a long drive because there are no bridges and you must drive all the way around the canyon. The drive East, then North to Page, AZ for a couple of errands, then west to Jacob lake to the 40 mile access road took us about 8 hours. Entering the North Rim is completely different than the South. The land is rolling hills, ponderosa forest and huge open meadows. Unlike the south rim, there are no views of the Canyon until one reaches the rim. It would be possible to drive all the way into the North Rim, park your car, walk into the North Rim Lodge and across the lobby to the windows that look over the canyon before you got a view. And what a view it is. At the North Rim, the views are not as broad, but are much more intimate. You are much closer to the Canyon features here than at South. The Campground is perched on the rim along the Transcept Canyon looking directly at Oza Butte.

For our first adventure we chose the Widforss Trail which took us back along the Trancept to the head of the canyon. The hike starts about a mile from the campground. We biked to the trail head via the bridle paths. After losing a few hundred feet of altitude to reach the trailhead the trial climbs back up to the rim through ponderosa forest. Once on the rim we hiked along the edge with occasional dips and rises for about 3 miles to reach the head of the Transcept Canyon. We could have gone another few miles to reach Widforss Point but since it was mostly in forest we elected to go back and save our energy for tomorrows hike below the rim.
The North Kaibab trail runs from the rim, down through Bright Angel Canyon to the Colorado River at Phantom Ranch. We knew Phantom Ranch would be too far for a day trip so decided to head down as far as we felt comfortable making it back up to the rim. If you click on the above photo and look carefully right in the middle of the picture you will see a bridge crossing the canyon some 2,500 feet below the rim. That's our destination!
As we descended into the canyon we were amazed by the myriad colors of the canyon walls, especially vibrant in the early morning at the beginning of our hike. The trail winds incessantly down through more switchbacks than we cared to count. As at the South Rim we always had to be aware that the trip down is less than half the trip and we had to save sufficient energy reserves for the trip back up. Several times we met the mule trains hauling people or supplies up or down the canyon. If you wish to visit below the rim but don't feel up for the hike this is a great option.
The North Rim, with it's many moods of color and light is indeed a much more intimate picture of the Grand Canyon than the South Rim. Not better, maybe a little prettier, a lot less hectic, but very different. I can't decide which I liked better and would have to recommend both to anyone planning on visiting the Grand Canyon. If you have only enough time to do one...I wish you good luck with your choice, either will be wonderful.

NEXT: We leave Arizona for New Mexico - Navajo Lake and more spectacular Ancient Ruins.

The Grand Canyon, Arizona...South Rim

Few natural features on earth compare with the Grand Canyon. The sediment layed down, layer by layer, one mile deep, by ancient oceans required 1.8 Billion years to accumulate. In a mere 4.5 Million years the Colorado River carved a mile down to the Vishnu Schist Basement Rocks that form the Canyon floor, leaving a vast collection of Mesas, Buttes, Towers, Plateaus and other features spread over 1.2 million acres, 277 miles long and as much as 15 miles wide. It makes one feel a little bit insignificant. It is so immense that it is impossible to describe it. Let me just say that you owe it to yourself to go there some day and I'll give you a few pictures here to whet your appetite but I promise you, they won't do it justice. We stayed at Mather Campground, at the South Rim for 5 days The South Rim Village is a bustle of activity containing the campgrounds, the hotels, Visitor center, stores, studios, restaurants and various services of the National Park Service needed to take care of the Canyon and it's 4.5 million visitors each year (44% of which are non-Americans. It's called a National Park, but it is a World Park). Cars, buses, The Canyon's free shuttle bus service (Marvelous), bikes, mules, and trains ply the canyon on a daily basis. It's busy, but it really works. and we had a great time. Our first adventure was a hike down the South Kaibab Trail to "Skeleton Point, over 2,000 feet below the rim, but still 3,000 feet above the Colorado River, the Architect of the Canyon. (Note the California Condor soaring majestically above the river) That was enough of a hike for us when you consider that at the end of the day we had to hike back up 2,000 feet to the rim at over 7,000 feet. Hot, dry, dusty, but wonderful. Getting down into the canyon is a lot of work, and the deeper you go, the hotter it gets, but it gives you the best views of the Canyon's many features. One of the finest facilities at the South Rim is the Greenway trail. Paved bicycle/pedestrian paths crisscross the venues of the Rim. We stayed 5 days and between the bikes and the Free shuttle buses never had to move the truck. Our second adventure was a bike trip to the "Hermit's Rest" at the far western side of the South Rim Village area. It's about a 10 mile trip out from the campground. Hermit's Rest can only be reached on foot, by bike, or by shuttle bus so the biking is traffic free when on the roads, and even bus free when on the Greenway which is not yet complete out to the end. The Greenway gives many views of the Canyon that are only available on foot or by bike. Kudos to the National Park Service for developing so many trails for foot and bike traffic. Much of the trip t0 Hermits Rest is down hill, so we elected to take advantage of the bike racks on the shuttles and rode home in style. We saw three Califonia Condors on the Hermit's Rest trip. They're hard to photograph. If you have time take the Ranger Talk on the California Condor given each evening at Kolb Studio. If you're real lucky you may get a visit from one of the stars of the show. Many days, or evenings, would find us on the rim trail visiting the various overlooks and view points of the Canyon Rim. We watched sunrise from Yavapai Point,and Sunset from the rim trail. We had lunch in some unbelievable places, and we will never forget this place..and we will come back.Spring is a marvelous time to visit the GrandCanyon as many of the plants are in bloom. The sun, being lower in the sky in the Spring provides exceptional light for photography and cooler temperatures for hiking. If you are at all able to hike then by all means hike at least part of the Canyon. When you hike down into the Canyon you experience far more the overwhelming size of it.

Just a reminder, most of the pictures in the Blog are shown in low resolution but a higher resolution version is available if you click on the picture.

Next: The North Rim, 10 miles and 8 hours away.