EL DESIERTO PINTADO

HE PAINTED DESERT-That fascinating unreal landscape of colored badlands stretching for three hundred miles across the Northern Arizona highlandshow it appeals to the imagination! Prehistoric Indians slipped silently about in its tinted valley awaiting the arrival of friendly trading tribes, or lay in hiding from enemies. While they waited they whiled away their valueless time by pecking pictures deep into the rocks, and their prehistoric remarks still remain unchallenged. How can one dispute a statement when one cannot read what was written?

In the days of the gold rush and later during the Civil War, the Painted Desert was a favorite retreat for roving bands of marauders. Safe in its concealed depths, with plenty of feed and water for stock, they could hole up and wait for the opportune moment to fall upon some unsuspecting wagon train or caravan its depths, and conscientious (more or less) objectors found refuge among the painted hills when the roll call came to fight for whatever the last war represented.

And when prohibition hovered over the land many private stills grew overnight in the Painted Desert. Government surveyors and rangers stumble over these crude distilleries even yet.

But those days are gone forever, and, calm and peaceful, the Painted Desert dreams in the summer sunshine and slumbers in the winter snows. Covered by snow there is little beauty in the Painted Desert. No soft tints nor flaming colors to gladden the artistic eye. It is Only a lot of haystacks wrapped in white blankets.

From Canyon de Chelly this brilliant valley wends its way through the Navajo Reservation, past the Hopi Mesas and on to where the Little Colorado joins the Big Colorado at Marble Canyon. There are places where it widens out into almost a plain and the colors are pastel. Again it draws itself into deep gorges and the cliffs and embankments clothe themselves in strong shades of mulberry and violet and yellow and blues. There has always been a strong curiosity in the mind of the sight-seeing public about this Painted Desert and a few years ago President Hoover, by presidential proclamation added several thousand acres of the most brilliant part of it to the Petrified Forest National Monument in order that the hundred thousand and more Forest visitors each year might enjoy at close range thebeauties of the glowing valley, without having to look from privately owned commercial peepholes.

MARCH, 1938 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 9

Late this year approximately five miles of highway have been completed by the National Park Service and opened to travel. This road follows the curves of the desert rim and at certain points broad parking spaces have been provided. Here travelers can park their cars and look down into the depths of the desert. From one point the hills look like they were upholstered with crushed plush in the deep maroon and crimson shades our grandmothers loved to have in their parlors. Around some of the hills are glittering fringes of mica ledges which have crumbled and draped themselves artistically. Hungry tourists or small hot boys, wondering impatiently why their parents linger there so long, can imagine the brown hills are great scoops of chocolate ice cream with marshmallow sauce, said sauce being a crown of dried white alkali.

These hills are not sand, shifted here and there by the strong winds that sweep the desert. They are a rock-like formation colored by the minerals of hot springs that abounded in the region a hundred million or so years ago. And more color was added by ashes of volcanos which studded the nearby landscape.

In the heart of the Painted Desert lies the almost mythical Black Forest. Thousands and thousands of great dark tusks lie petrified in their graveyard of colored marl. These trees are an entirely different species from the ones found in the Petrified Forest across the Puerco River. No fascinating colors of yellow and red and blue and saffron are in this wood. It is either a dull brown or black that gleams like jet when polished and set in silver jewelry. There is no road to thisForest and the tourist must view the Desert from the rim. With field glasses they can bring the scene close enough for enjoyment and distance lends enchantment to the picture. What, from above, spreads itself like a magic carpet, closes in too snugly for comfort when one is in the bottom of the valley. There is no water available to the uninitiated, and there would be too much danger of the unwary travelers becoming lost should they be permitted to roam around unescorted.

Bands of wild horses have found a haven in the Desert. Coming at sunset to certain spots in the Lithodendron Wash (trees turned to stone), they sniff along the stream bed until water is scented. Then skillful hooves paw away the sands, and the thirsty animals patiently wait for the brownish water to seep into waterholes. Meantime, posted on a high lookout point, one of the herd keeps watch. At the first suspicious sound or scent he sends a shrill whistle of warning to the band below. Like fleet ghosts they whirl and are lost in the shadowy coulees with which the desert is filled. A few years ago some young cowboys decided to capture themselves mounts to ride at a neighborhood rodeo. Days and days of skillful trailing and driving isolated a half dozen wild horses on the point of a mesa. Sure that the game was won the boys rode toward them whirling their ropes as each selected his victim. The leader whistled fright and defiance at the intruders and led his band directly over the steep ledge. Liberty or death-and since the Painted Desert now belongs to Uncle Sam for the enjoyment of his traveling family, there will be no more hunting of the wild horses that have found refuge in its depths. The little wildburros can roam unmolested and the coyotes and wildcats and rabbits and badgers have only one another to fear, or at most the great eagles that wheel overhead looking for free lunch. Ravens build their nests in the crevices of the tall cliffs inscribed with Indian writings, and, where a crumbling ruin of a Pony Express and later a Stage Station, drowses through the peaceful years, an eagle builds his nest season after season. On the rocks around this ruined stage station many names are graven. And the name of the town in Ohio or Kentucky or perhaps Missouri, from which the homesick traveler came. There must have been days at a time when the stages were storm bound in this Painted Desert retreat and the passengers had plenty of time to roam around and leave their own inscriptions among those of the prehistoric Indians. The latest date written by stage travelers seems to be 1882.

Earlier travelers, however, left a printed record of their inspection of the Painted Desert.

In 1540 the Spanish Conquistador, Coronado, stumbled upon the phantomlike landscape as he journeyed toward the Hopi Mesas in search of gold and glory. Promptly the poet side of the grim warrior named the valley "El Pintado Desierto" and that name has clung throughout the centuries.

In 1858, Lt. Whipple, engaged in surveying a railway route to the Pacific Coast, mentions the beauties of the Painted Desert and describes the black petrified wood found in it. He gave the stream, weaving its way along the floor of the valley, the name of Lithodendron Wash, meaning, literally, stone wood.

From the colored rock in the Painted Desert and describes the black petrified wood found in it. He gave the stream, weaving its way along the floor of the valley, the name of Lithodendron Wash, meaning, literally, stone wood.(Continued on Page 28)