We planed to spend a full day riding the south Canyon Rim (There's a north canyon and a south canyon.) looking at the beautiful red Canyon and it's cliff dwellings. We left in the morning for the ride along the rim. It's roughly 20 miles out with a half dozen view sights from the rim and one that allows you to walk down into the canyon. The canyon rims are 5 or 6 hundred feet above the canyon bottom.
Here are scenes from the South Rim. With the north canyon included there is about 40 miles of canyon bottom with a bunch of tillable land for crops. There is a ruin in that alcove on the left
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| From Riding SM4C, Sabmag |
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| From Riding SM4C, Sabmag |
Indians still live and work the land down there. The park services runs all sorts of guided tours, taking care not to bother the residents....often thru an active stream, by the way. It's not cheap though. Ruins in the far wall.
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| From Riding SM4C, Sabmag |
One of the ruins called the 'White House' allows you to visit. The walk is just over 2 miles total with a 600 ft elevation change. It's a tester. :eek1
Here we start down...
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| From Riding SM4C, Sabmag |
The trail is interesting. Nip waving for the folks...
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| From Riding SM4C, Sabmag |
A second tunnel....
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| From Riding SM4C, Sabmag |
Finally at the bottom
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| From Riding SM4C, Sabmag |
Sometimes there is a lot of water, and a bridge is required.
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| From Riding SM4C, Sabmag |
We round a wall down there and are greeted with these Indians trying to make a living. It was the last thing that I expected, but I don't blame them...money rules.
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| From Riding SM4C, Sabmag |
There's the White House, and look at that humongous cliff.
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| From Riding SM4C, Sabmag |
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| From Riding SM4C, Sabmag |
That's as close as we could get....gotta respect how fragile that stuff is, as well as how many people want to see it.
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| From Riding SM4C, Sabmag |
Nip and I tried to see the hand holds and path that the Indians used to get to the second level for some time. Later a ranger told us that the bottom level was five stories high when folks were living here. We felt kinda dumb after that. :rofl
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| From Riding SM4C, Sabmag |
....and I was there. :clap
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| From Riding SM4C, Sabmag |
......We start back up the hill...There are a few benches in a bit of shade along the way. You feel pretty good sitting on one of those benches. Then another geezer comes along but you're still sitting there. They go on by.
Well, payback is hell at the next bench, and those folks that just passed you by are sitting there on the bench that you would die for. :evil:evil
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| From Riding SM4C, Sabmag |
Our trail is gradual and winds around a lot, very gradual accent. We watched a pair of teenage kids just taking a direct route down the hill like this picture. They said they had to tend the sheep after school. They didn't even know the hill was there. :huh
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| From Riding SM4C, Sabmag |
We finished out the day running out to Spider Rock. This rock has been in many commercials. I think one had a jeep on top of it. My camera ran out of battery so go here to see Spider Rock. It's the third picture down.
http://www.sacredlandtours.com/naztours.html
Back at camp we prepared hamburgers for dinner.
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| From Riding SM4C, Sabmag |
Alcohol stoves performing as hoped...
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| From Riding SM4C, Sabmag |
Fed well, we went to bed happy. Tomorrow we'd head out the North rim to see the sites and then head for Albuquerque. Taos is in the distance. I've never been there.
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