Canyon de Chelly, Thursday, March 26, 2026
We started the day off right with delicious blue corn pancakes at the lodge cafeteria, and then climbed into our monster car for a ride along the scenic drive that borders the south rim of the canyon. The name Canyon de Chelly is a Spanish bastardization of the Navajo “Tséyi’,” which means “deep in the rock.” Up until their forceful removal by the US government during the Civil War, thousands of Navajos lived in the canyon, which is still lush and verdant at many places.
The drive starts with a view of a side branch called Tunnel Canyon.
The next stop, the Tséyi Overlook, affords views into the south fork of the canyon, with several farms.
The next stop is the best known in the canyon, offering a view down onto one of the largest ruins, White House. There are more than 300 ruins in the Canyon del Muerto, the north branch of Canyon de Chelly, and more than 100 in the south branch. The ruins–and many, many pictographs on the canyon walls–are the remains of clan dwelling places of the Ancestral Puebloans, the people who preceded both the Hopi and Navajo peoples. The ruins in the canyons date from 700 to 1280 AD; within two hundred years of the disappearance of the Ancestral Pueblans, Hopi clans occupied the canyon. Navajos began moving into the canyon by the seventeenth century, and by the end of the eighteenth century had wholly displaced the Hopi.
The southern branch of the canyon is lower and broader than the north branch.
The drive along the south rim ends at a remarkable spot, an overlook above Spider Rock.
In Navajo mythology, ancient peoples saw spiders running up and down the rock and asked them to teach them weaving.
We just made it back to the lodge in time for our jeep tour of the canyon. We were picked up by our guide, Terrill, a Navajo who has been guiding since 1987, taking hikers, horse riders, and jeep passengers deep into the canyon.
The term “Jeep” isn’t strictly accurate. Most of the tour guides use Austrian troop transports built in the mid-1970’s. These are remarkable things: air cooled four cylinder engines drive a huge vehicle that holds 12 soldiers…or gringos. Here’s one with the top up: ours was totally open up top. I suppose “Steyr-Puch Troop Transport Tour” just doesn’t have the same ring.
We saw our first pictograph within five minutes of entering the canyon; a number of handprints that served as signatures, a dancer, and a thunderbird.
We came to our first major ruin, First Dwelling, just before the junction of the two branches of the canyon. Although several of the dwellings are reduced to rubble, the kiva (on the left) and a storeroom (on the right) are well preserved.
At “The Junction,” the canyon divides, with Canyon de Chelly running east and the Canyon del Muerto running northeast. Just past the junction is the aptly named Junction Dwelling.
This is Rounded Corner Ruin.
This is Ledge Ruin. It is one of he most complex in the canyon, and includes multiple storehouses and intact dwellings around the kiva.
The largest ruin in the Canyon del Muerto is the Antelope Dwelling. We were able to approach the ruin on foot along a path that runs out from a … snack bar! Many of the jeeps stop here, and a young couple sells water, sweets, fry bread, and, of course, jewelry and weavings. There are even toilets provided by the Park Service.
Terrill stopped the jeep a half mile or so up the canyon, just past the junction of the Canyon del Muerto and Black Rock Canyon, so that we could gaze up at the massive Navajo Fortress Rock.
Conflict between increasing numbers of white settlers and the Navajo had escalated since the mid-1840’s. The Navajos raided settler’s farms and army supplies, while the settlers and New Mexico militias responded with violence. After 1863, the Navajo took advantage of the distraction caused by Confederate Troops invading in the Rio Grande Valley to step up their raids. The US government concluded that the only solution was the removal of the tribe from its lands and its resettlement at Fort Sumner in eastern New Mexico, some 390 miles from Canyon de Chelly.
Kit Carson and 389 troops were sent to the Canyon to round up the Navajo who had taken shelter in the canyon and deliver them to Fort Sumner. Carson found very few Navajo, but conducted a scorched earth policy on their farms and dwellings. Looking down from the rim, he realized that more than a thousand Navajo were hiding on top of Fortress Rock. Unable to force them to descend, Carson starved them into surrender. They joined other groups that had surrendered or been captured. Between 8,000 and 9,000 Navajo were forced to walk on foot to Bosque Redondo, near Fort Sumner, and remain there until 1868.
We saw one more ruin, Standing Cow, before returning to the Junction. As the door indicates, this is still in use by a local family.
From the Junction, it is a short jaunt to White House.
You may be wondering how the inhabitants, who were probably no more than five feet tall, reached the upper ledges–here or really anywhere. White House is unusual in that it includes a ground level structure which originally rose four stories up the cliff; above that were a series of ladders. In other cases, handholds and ledges with ladders led upward; many are now eroded.
This is the great American photographer Timothy O’Sullivan’s image of White House from 1873.
It had been an extraordinary day. The canyon is certainly one of the most beautiful and mysterious places I’ve seen. Four hours of violent bouncing, though, had taken it out of us and we were ready to kick the dust off our shoes by 5:30 when we returned.
Having exhausted all other options, we had dinner at…Dennie’s. Which proved not to be bad at all!