4/10/18 Canyon De Chelly Az - Janet and Mark joined us late on 4/9. The morning brought sun, blue skies and warm temps. The day was our Jeep day in the canyon with a Navajo guide in the afternoon. We did have a chance to do a short driving tour of the upper rim and to look down in the canyon, roughly 300 to 700 feet down.

 

We met our guide Irene who is a 100% Navajo and lives adjacent to the canyon rim. Instead of a Jeep tour we had the Denali upgraded tour. A very comfortable full size AWD vehicle.

 Irene was perfect for us, spending time to explain Indian life in the canyon dating back to the Puebloean age 2000 years ago to today. We saw many sights in the canyon that you just couldn't see from above. Our tour lasted 4 hours and roughly 40 miles. The entrance into the canyon is like driving at the beach with very loose sand. It was like riding an amusement ride with the truck spinning tires and swaying back and forth to make its way the the deep sand.

 Although Canyon De Chelly is a National Monument it is in the middle of the Navajo Reservation. It is a united arrangement allowing the Navajo to retain rights to use the canyon and surrounding area. The canyon is farmed by several different Navajo families with the rights to use the land handed down from generation to generation. We were quite surprised to find a rather large population of wild Mustangs roaming the canyon.

 Irene introduced us to one of the native people (Catherine) who actual lives in the canyon. We were the only tour group to have this opportunity to experience a little taste of canyon life. The home, to say the least, was very modest, a stone and mud structure, wood roof and stone floor. Catherine shared with us her process to hand spin yarn, die it with natural elements found in the canyon and operate a weave. A daunting process spending many hours I'm sure to compete just a small weave. Wendy and Janet proceeded to ask Catherine the cost of a couple of the items and $300.00 from Catherine was the quick answer. Just as quickly Wendy and Janet put the items down and changed the subject. Whew!

                                                                Cleaning the wool

       Spinning wool that she hand sheered from her sheep raised in the canyon.

                                                                        Color chart

                                                 Sights from the bottom of the canyon.

White House ruins

A great day!