The Best Unknown Park in America

[mgc1961]

CHINLE, Ariz. — On the floor of Canyon de Chelly, what pops up in three dimensions of desert light are the remains of 900-year-old stone apartments, the graveyard of peach trees cut down by Kit Carson’s Indian killers, and sandstone walls that drew the cameras of Edward Curtis and Ansel Adams.

But it’s much more than a still life. Here is a Navajo farmer, tilling corn and squash in red dirt next to a home in the shape of the traditional hogan, door facing the rising sun. There is the sound of sheep bells bouncing off spires the size of the Washington Monument. And just now comes a runner in braids, grinding up vertical feet under the midday sun.

This federal monument, where the past is not dead or even past, is alive like no other unit of the National Park Service. People live in the Canyon de Chelly (pronounced d’SHAY), and they are much more than props for all those visitors from France and Germany. As the national parks try to reinvent themselves in an age when people are bored by anything that can’t be delivered by smart phone, one model is the Indian way.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/the-best-unknown-park-in-america/?hp

[Lucky Luciano]

1. was there 20 years ago, but only had time to

...view from above. Would live to return and get down to the bottom. I believe a guide us required as it is NA land.

[mgc1961]

2. I haven't been to that park but the next time I'm in that part of the country...

My next trip may be a bike ride to Wilmington, NC to take a tour the USS North Carolina.

[pamela]

3. I was there last year.

Actually almost exactly a year ago today. I love it there. Here's a picture I took there of Spider Rock. (It's a cell phone pic so it's not the greatest.)

[mgc1961]

4. Thanks.

I'll have to tell my Mom about this park. She could make some nice additions to her gallery of painting.

[The Second Stone]

6. That may be the best landscape pic ever taken from a cell phone

It's quite good.

[Suich]

7. Fantastic picture, pamela!

Makes me a little dizzy to look at it!

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[FailureToCommunicate]

5. Saw it on horseback a few years ago. Fantastic! A Navajo

guide explained the history of the region from the Pueblo ("Anasazi") cliff dwellers, thru Kit Carson's genocidal raids, to the present.

Highly recommended!

Thanks for the reminder of this amazing part of America.

[denbot]

8. Alley and I hike through it a few years ago.

One of my favorite petroglyphs is a giant parrot carved on a sandstone wall located there. If you visit and are up to it, the visitor center has local guides that you can hire to take you on a hiking tour. There is a campground there, and even a coffeshop/trailer at the canyon entrance called "Changing Woman's Cafe". The owner's very cool lady.

http://changingwomancafe.com/