Petroglyphs, Ruins and Winds of Canyon de Chelley

One of the aspects everyone in our group was looking forward to while riding at Canyon de Chelley was learning about the history of the canyon as well as seeing the petroglyphs and ruins.

James, our Navajo Guide showed us many petroglyphs and ruins, and if we looked carefully above us, we would often find even more.

There were several major ruins that we were able to stop and dismount, tie up our equines, and get even closer.

Like White House Ruins.

White House Ruins is also the only ruins that can be seen and hiked down to, without a Navajo Guide.

Apache was dwarfed by my friends' Percheron. But she was grateful for a rest as we had already ridden over 15 miles by this time.

There were a lot of tourists and visitors at the White House Ruins. Some hiked down, while some were jeeped in...and some, like us, rode our horses there.

There were nice facilities there with restrooms and a picnic area, too. Usually there would have been Indian vendors as well, but the day had become quite windy.

Not only did we have wind, which stained the sky red and brown with canyon dust, but we also experienced spatterings of rain, too. And water crossings.....we couldn't ride a half mile without having to cross water.

But there were ruins to be seen in just about every canyon crevice, especially way up high.

There were more ruins than I could even count, photograph or remember their name, if they even had one.

Canyon de Chelley is not only beautiful and impressive, but it also holds many secrets. You could explore the canyons for an entire lifetime and always discover new surprises.

One of my favorite parts of the canyon were the Bosque areas. I loved riding beneath the tall cottonwood trees beside the river.

But riding beside the immensely tall canyon walls was always a thrill, too. This section shown below in the photo, was even more thrilling, as this is where a mighty dust devil blew right into our group. I watched it building up strength and coming towards us, so I turned Apache around to face her butt into the worst of it. And we both hunkered down, eyes closed, until it moved past us. I was very proud of Apache for trusting me and being willing to stand calm and still while the dust storm surrounded us.

There were many opportunities to photograph ruins.

And there was more wind...and more water crossings.

And yes....even more water crossings.

As we rode closer towards the mouth of the canyon and the walls slowly became lower, the wind became stronger. We were all tired, saddle sore, and weary of the canyon by now...as you can see in Dave and his horse, Utah's face.

Riding in the gusting, dust filled air was exhausting. By this time we had lost interest in the impressive canyon walls, the historic ruins, and fascinating petroglyphs.

My friend Amy described perfectly how we were feeling at this time: "Oh look! Another effing ruin!" "Oh, a petroglyph....that's nice" "Look at those canyon walls! Uh..no thanks". hahah!

None of us complained, but everytime we rode up to another curve in the canyon our spirits lifted.....until we rounded the bend and realized that we had not arrived at the mouth of the canyon yet.

As the wind became stronger and stirred up even more red canyon dust, iit felt otherworldly, as if we were riding on Mars.

We were still seeing ruins and petroglyphs, but none of them made us want to stop for a closer look.....until we saw these.

These were the perfect petroglphys for a group of tired horseback riders to see at the end of the day. The sight of them re-energized us enough to keep going.

I was even energized enough to notice the beauty in rock again.

But we still had more water crossings and more wind to ride through.

As we neared the mouth of the canyon, the flowing water reached the entire width of the canyon, so the remainder of our ride was ridden through shallow water.

At the end of our day, we rode past several Navajo horse wild herds and even saw some of them mating. Most of them ignored us and our horses ignored them. We were all too tired.

But the last photo I took in the canyon that day was this one below. Picture perfect memory from our day in Canyon de Chelley.

Next up: Exploring Canyon de Muerto on Horseback