Arrowhead Ranch: Water Crossings of Canyon de Chelley

When planning for this ride, I had two concerns from the research I had done: 1)That steep, rugged descent into Bat Canyon, and 2)Water Crossings.

I wasn't worried about my horse going into the water. I was concerned that she would try to lie down in the water with me on her back, something she had done with me several times since I've owned her. My Apache mare is a water dog, a seahorse. She loves wallowing in water.

But I was prepared. I brought my quirt and I wore it on my wrist, ready to remind Apache that I was still on her back and didn't have any interest in taking a wallow in any body of water that day.

And there were many water crossings. I lost count after the 15th or 16th water crossing. Seriously. The entire length of Canyon de Chelley has a small river that runs for part of the year. Part of that year, was when we were there to ride. And we found ourselves riding beside that river all day, crossing and recrossing it over and over.

The first couple water crossings, a couple of the horses in our group balked at going across. But some eagerly crossed with no problems.

Tia's horse had never crossed water before that day, so she was eager to use the experience to desensitize and train her mare on water crossings.

Some of the horses were just thrilled to have fresh, cool water to drink all day. Dave's Percheron enjoyed having an endless supply to drink.

By the 4th or 5th water crossing, none of our horses balked or even paused before crossing the water. And after the first and second water crossings, where I had to quickly and sharply remind Apache that she was not permitted to lie down in the water with me on her back, Apache crossed the river easily and smoothly without any attempts at laying down.

The first few water crossings were fun and a novelty, especially for those of us from New Mexico. But after that, the water crossings were kind of just a blur...one right after the other.

In between water crossings, we'd ride past beautiful canyon walls.

And then we'd cross water again.

And then we'd ride through the beautiful bosque with cottonwood trees just beginning to leaf out.

And then we'd cross some more water.

Followed by more canyon wall scenery.

And more bosque trees....

And more water crossings.

That's how it went all day, 25 miles in the saddle. The scenery was just breathtaking.

Some of the water crossings were rather fun, with steep sloped hills leading down into or out of the river.

There were often petroglyphs, Indian ruins, and interesting rock formations to enjoy along the way. Like this natural stone arch in the canyon wall.

And of course, there were always water crossings.....

And beautiful red canyon walls.

And natural arches....

And more water crossings.

An impressive window rock formation.

Apache seemed to enjoy herself as much as I was, and often gazed around at the scenery, too.

Riding among the cottonwood bosque was very peaceful.

We all stopped as often as we could to take photos. But we had to keep a steady forward pace so we could cover our 25 miles that day to get back to our campsite before dark. We did quite a bit of trotting with some cantering thrown in, too. And we stopped sometimes to let our horses rest, but we rarely dismounted. We were in the saddle for over 6 hours that day.

There were photo ops around every bend.

But the photos don't really portray the canyon's true beauty. You really have to be there to appreciate it.

Sometimes we had canyon wall, bosque, and water crossing all at once. The ride was never boring.

But I'm pretty sure we had over 25 water crossings that day.

Riding way in the back helped to capture the true immensity of the canyon by allowing me to photograph my riding buddies surrounded by those impressive rock walls.

You get a real sense of scale and perspective with my friends riding beneath those canyon walls.

It's beyond impressive, actually mind-blowing.

I took a ton of photos and am so glad I did. That day was such a blur with the number of miles we rode and the speed we had to maintain. It's amazing even to me, to look at these photos and the beautiful scenery we enjoyed that day.

And of course, all those water crossings.....

Even though the day was cloudy, the scenery never disappointed. Although it would have made for better photos if we had had a blue sky.

I used a new camera on this trip, a tiny Canon Powershot point and shoot. And I also brought along my old camera as back-up. I discovered that the new camera takes better pictures with more pixels, so that I don't have to edit them at all. All these photos in this post are straight out of camera (SOOC).

There were a few water crossings with very steep descents into the river.

And the river at times was deep and fast flowing. Other times it was only 4-6 inches deep and slow flowing.

For much of the day, we traveled on the only road in the canyon. It's a dirt road that the Native Americans who live or farm in the canyon, use to reach their own private land.