High desert Southwest, Part 2

Our first visit to the Grand Canyon, back in May 2015, was to the North Rim and even though it was late May we ran into snow and fog that obscured the canyon. This year we braved the far more popular South Rim, and boy was it popular.

Looking east from the Desert Watchtower

That's the Bright Angel Trail, which descends all the way to the bottom to the Phantom Ranch on the river. The wind was so strong that we decided to stay away. The problem is, if you're not going down the canyon, you're stuck on the boardwalk along the canyon with the throngs of other tourists.

Caroline and I decided to jog 2 miles along the Rim Trail. This time she held strong but the elevation kicked my butt.

All along the trail were gift shops. In fact, it was almost as though the canyon backdrop were a green screen and we were strolling in an outdoor shopping mall. That book in the top left was written by the same author as Misty of Chincoteague. We brought our own copy and read it to Tessie on the trip.

Leaving the GC we decided to visit 2 parks near Flagstaff, Wupatki and Sunset Crater. As we got close to Wupatki, we received emergency notification of a rapidly spreading forest fire in the area. 

Then we saw the smoke and learned that the highway was closed. Turning around would have meant a 2-hour detour or we could off-road it for 45 min through the bush, where Google Maps claimed roads existed. We remembered Google Maps's lapse in Portugal, but armed with a 4WD SUV we took the chance.

The first 15 minutes were sketchy and there might have been tears shed and thoughts of blowing a tire and being stranded in the desert, but eventually we found a perfectly good dirt road through the wasteland. Google Maps, we shouldn't have doubted you.

This is Montezuma Well, a natural lake, inhabited by the puebloans - see the cliff dwelling? There are no fish because of high arsenic levels

but the water could be diverted for irrigation. 

We arrived at Montezuma Castle just as a tour bus unloaded. Sorry to disappoint you folks, but the "Castle" is just another decaying cliff dwelling (and it has nothing to do with Aztecs!)

Tuzigoot National Monument - more pueblos

Tessie's booklet from Walnut Canyon - at the bottom right the "Bruh" reader is thinking "Is that native?"

Just a garter snake

A couple of years ago we visited a bouldering gym in Idaho and had a blast. We visited another one in Flagstaff that was full of buff Northern Arizona college guys, but this time Caroline and Erin were too embarrassed to go inside.

Nightswimming

We saw so many freight trains in Flagstaff, heading east with goods from the port of Long Beach, CA

We're here at the Petrified Forest, whose logs were deposited about 215 million years ago at the beginning of the Triassic period

The Colorado Plateau is unique for its vast sedimentary rock sequences that uplifted horizontally intact without deformation. In the East the rocks are usually upturned to some degree.

The park lies in what is called the "Painted Desert" but that is a marketing misnomer. It is a vast gray desert peppered with so many amazingly fossilized logs. Petrified wood is not uncommon around the world, but such a massive concentration of it is unique.

Hubbell Trading Post was established for trade with the Navajo people

and it is still in operation. We traded electronic data bits for a small handmade rug.

Thanks to Lowell NHP I can recognize a loom

Caroline's writing about how a traded rug feels

Canyon de Chelly is in the Navajo Nation and requires a guide to hike into. We stayed on the top.

El Morro NM contains a spring that attracted travelers who also carved notes on Inscription Rock

"A 5 del Mes de Junyo deste ano De 1709 Paso por aquy para Suni Ramon Garzia Jurado"

“On the 5th of the month of June, of this year of 1709, passed be here on the way to Zuni, Ramon Garcia Jurado”

El Malpais NM is one of those volcanic wasteland sites, along with Craters of the Moon NM, Lava Beds NM, Lassen Volcanic NP, and Hawaii Volcanoes NP.

The bat cave!

This lava tube is a quarter mile long and usually one can explore it, but all the caves were closed due a bat census

That afternoon the wind was so fierce that we saw 2 trucks on the side of the road that had been blown over

Adios Albuquerque