Traveling in a Winnebago

Traveling in a Winnebago
Traveling in a Winnebago

Friday, September 6, 2013

Antelope Canyon and on to Canyon de Chelly.

Today is Friday September 6th and we are still in Cottonwood, AZ. We have been here the past two weeks checking out the area and relaxing around the campground. We will be here for another week before heading West to Emerald Cove Resort, Earp, CA where we will stay for 4 days. We will be close to Lake Havasu and the site of the London Bridge.

The weather has been great here with only and occasional evening thunderstorms. South of us in Phoenix, AZ it has been in the 100s yesterday hitting 110 degrees but we have been in the 90s here. It's comfortable sitting under the awning on our patio. Cottonwood is a great area and high enough in the hills to keep the temperature more moderate. Today it did hit 100 though but I'm here in the Thousand Trails Rec. Center keeping cool.

Well, I guess I can continue on with our last stay before we arrived in Cottonwood. On our last full day in Page, AZ we took a jeep tour out to Antelope Canyon.

A few miles east of Page on the Navajo Reservation exists the most photographed "slot canyon" in northern Arizona. The slot in Upper Antelope Canyon measures a quarter mile long and 130 feet deep. Access to Antelope Canyon is restricted by the Navajo Tribe. Visitors must go with a licensed tour guide from Page. Once you get to the entrance it's an easy stroll through the chamber, it's fairly level with no rocks to climb.

Seen from the surface, a slot canyon appears as a slash in the mesa. From within you find a palette of colors transmitted by light filtering down from above and bouncing from wall to wall. Antelope Canyon has become a favorite destination for pro and amateur photographers, tourists and movie producers.

This is the entrance to the slot canyon. Notice it's not very wide but a very easy walk through it.



The canyon is all about photographing the unique colors. Here are a few photos I took, nothing like the pros but it will do for me.





Wednesday, August 21st it was time to leave Page and head West into the Navajo Nation to Canyon de Chelly (pronounced "d'shay").

As we left Page, 6 miles East of Glen Canyon Dam, we passed the Navajo Generation Station which is a 2250 megawatt coal-fired power plant located on the Navajo Indian Reservation.


Along the way Bev was clicking away with the camera capturing the great scenery.





It was a nice easy scenic trip and we arrived early in the day.


We stayed at Spider Rock Campground which is in the Navajo Indian Reservation so it is run by Indians. We thought we would get an electric only site but there are no services at all in Spider Rock Campground. The site, as you can see below, was a great site but very rustic. There were only a few campers there so I guess the big rigs went to a full service campground outside Canyon de Chelly. We were glad it wasn't very hot there because our Fantastic Vent Fan kept us cool without running the generator and air conditioning.


The campground is located on the south rim of the canyon so we spent the rest of the day touring the South Rim. We stopped at every overlook and view site along the rim and took hundreds of photos. Now my problem is which ones should I post, this is what I chose.













Before we stopped for the day we when to the visitor center to get as much information as we could. While there, we learned that there were jeep tours going down into the canyon. Bev called one of the tour companies and arranged a trip for the next day.

Navajo families live in the park, so canyon tours require an authorized guide and back country permit.

Thursday August 22nd we met our tour guide, jumped into his jeep and were off into the canyon. We left the main road and immediately entered the muddy river which we followed into the canyon. I mean we really followed it, we drove smack dab in the middle of it. The canyon only gets it water from the rain storms that drain into the canyon and every evening there were thunder storms so it was muddy.

I leaned out of the jeep and took this photo as we drove through the mud.


Here are a couple of horses enjoying the muddy river.



This rock looks like an Cobra snake's head.


We would drive for a while then get out of the jeep and hike to views of petroglyphs, pictographs, and ancient ruins. This is our jeep.








The Canyon de Chelly National Monument includes two large canyons, Canyon de Chelly to the south and Canyon del Muerto to the north.

The name of Canyon de Chelly was derived from the misspelling and mispronunciation of the Navajo work for the canyon. The Navajos call the canyon "Tseyi" which is pronounced 'say-ee'. Eventually the word became "de Chelly" which is pronounced as d'shay.

Canyon de Chelly National Monument was authorized in 1931 by President Herbert Hoover in large measure to preserve the important archaeological resources that span more than 4,000 years of human occupation. The monument encompasses approximately 84,000 acres of lands located entirely on the Navajo Nation with roughly 40 families residing within the park boundaries. The National Park Service and the Navajo Nation share resources and continue to work in partnership to manage this special place. Families live in the canyon during the summer and move to the upper canyon in the winter.

The South Rim Drive from the visitor center to the last overlook is approximately sixteen miles. There are seven overlooks. This fantastic rim drive takes about two hours to complete.

The North Rim Drive is approximately fifteen miles to the last overlook. Three overlooks enable unique views on this rim. The North Rim drive takes about two hours to complete.

We hit every overlooks on both rims, some on Wednesday when we arrived and some on Thursday after we completed our jeep tour down in the canyon. This is such a fantastic and scenic place and we enjoyed our stay very much.

Friday August 23rd we left this very scenic place and headed South West to our present location in Cottonwood, AZ. I will cover our trip and stay here on the next blog.

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