Indian Country

CANYON DE CHELLY

The weather is raw as I start to hike in solo from White House Overlook. A stiff breeze hurls occasional darts of icy rain against my face. Small windwarped trees cling to the rim rock. The natural environment of the high-desert Colorado Plateau country is severe, and trees here are notably tough. In thin, shallow soils that hold little moisture, piñon, juniper, and scrub oak thrive in gale-force winds, winter temperatures well below freezing, and in summer heat and drought. With scaled leathery leaves or short stubby needles, these sturdy trees are consummate water conservationists, and slow growth rates help them save energy. As I drop below the rim, I see cholla and prickly pear cacti, members of the family Opuntia, a class noted for its ability to withstand climatic extremes. Prickly pear, for example, covers a range that extends from Mexico north to southern British Columbia.

I keep my ears tuned. One of the pleasures of canyon hiking is the chorus of bird songs echoing down the walls. The descending trill of canyon wrens, the dolorous cooing of mourning doves, the rapid chatter of white-throated swifts, and the down-slurred scream of red-tailed Canyon de Chelly's natural environment, hiking into the canyon from the White House Overlook is the way to go.

The trailhead for the 2.5-mile roundtrip hike to White House Ruin begins about 150 yards from the White House Overlook parking lot on South Rim Drive, 6.4 miles from the Visitors Center. Well-maintained, the trail is classified as moderately strenuous because it descends 600 feet to the canyon floor in slightly more than one mile. Hiking out can be exhausting.

Canyon de Chelly, pronounced "d'Shay," is probably a Spanish corruption of the Navajo word tségi, meaning "rock (OPPOSITE PAGE) White House Ruin, one of 12 major prehistoric cliff dwellings in the canyon, offers a glimpse into the lifeways of Indians who lived on the Colorado Plateau centuries before white men arrived.

(LEFT) An Anasazi pictograph at Wall Ruin incorporates lines of figures at the top that may represent an ancient ceremony. The other figures could be shamans or supernatural beings.

canyon," or "in a canyon." The first Anglo-American description, written by Lt. James H. Simpson in 1849, refers to it as "Cañon of Chelly" or "Cañon de Chai." The natural beauty of Canyon de Chelly and its hundreds of cliff dwellings and rock-art sites repeatedly struck Lieutenant Simpson as "stupendous."

Throughout the canyons, the array of pictographs and petroglyphs overwhelms the senses. Most of the rock art is Anasazi in origin, but the Navajo have added to these displays with their own original style. A few of the paintings and etchings may be Hopi (descendants of the Anasazi), who were sporadic canyon dwellers until the Navajo took over for good in the mid-1700s.

By far the largest rock-art display is the 75-foot horizontal panel called The Wall or Newspaper Rock. Turkeys, deer, ducks, bird-headed men, legless humans with triangular bodies, flute players, and an assortment of spirals and other abstractions cover the wall. Most of these figures, scratched or pecked into the dark patina of desert varnish, are Anasazi. The horse and rider petroglyphs and those of men with shields are Navajo.

Navajo rock-art style consists of realistic energetic drawings of objects from daily life: crows, deer, pronghorns, birds. On the ceilings of some caves, often more than 10 feet from the floor, are carefully painted stars. At least 32 of these "planetaria" have been counted.

Whether you walk into Canyon de Chelly with a park ranger, hike on your own to White House Ruin, take a guided tour in a four-wheel-drive vehicle, ride horseback with an authorized Navajo guide, or drive the rim of Canyon de Chelly and Canyon del Muerto in your automobile, do it once, and you'll want to return again and again. T.D.