Canyon de Chelly's first occupants were the Anasazi who started building here around 300 A.D. They inhabited this place until around 1300 A.D. Later, the Navajo moved in, and they still call this place home today. While visiting Canyon de Chelly, please give the residents home's the privacy and respect they deserve.
Canyon de Chelly is 3 canyons actually.... Canyon de Chelly, Canyon del Muerto (Spanish for "canyon of the dead"), and Monument Canyon. You can drive the monument's paved rim roads in your own vehicle, enjoying spectacular bird's-eye views of places like Spider Rock. This split spire soars 832 feet from the canyon floor and holds a
place in Navajo lore as the home of Spider Woman
Also, for a traditional Navajo bedtime story about Spider Woman, Traditonal Navajo Stories
There are several different ways to experience the canyon, but my personal favorite is seeing the canyon bottomlands with a four-wheel drive group tour and a Navajo guide, but there are several other options. There are guided horseback and Jeep tours; or you may hire a guide for your own hike or for a driving tour in your own four-wheel drive vehicle. You'll have to choose what you want to see.... Ledge Ruin, Sliding House, Antelope House and its pictographs of local wildlife, Mummy Cave, and various panels of petroglyphs and pictographs. My choice would be Mummy Cave, but all of the different ruins are alluring and hold their own set of mysteries.
For more information on Canyon de Chelly National Monument, contact the visitors
center at Canyon de Chelly P.O. Box 588, Chinle, AZ 86503; (520) 674-5500, or visit the park's
home page at Canyon de Chelly, N.P.S. The park is open daily 8 A.M. to 5 P.M., October to April, and 8 A.M. to 6 P.M., May to
September. (closed Christmas) Admission to the monument is free.
Click on image to see full image
For good reading on Canyon de Chelly and the Anasazi, please go to my Library. Tony Hillerman also wrote one of his best Mysteries about this area, for a list of Tony Hillerman titles
