Spider Rock in Canyon De Chelly

The west never seems to stop amazing me.  Last year’s trip which included a brief stint in Monument Valley let me see the grand scale of the west and impressed me to the point I wanted to focus this year’s trip in the desert Areas of Utah and Arizona.  I am not disappointed with Canyon De Chelly, it is just wonderful.  Also I like the fact it is not a large visitor intensive park like Arches was last year.  I expect the Grand Canyon will be like that though and it is on my list for this year.  Canyon De Chelly is a national Monument not actually a full fledged National Park.  It is free to visit which appeals to our budget conscious readers.  The catch is that you may not enter the Valley itself without either hiring a guide or choosing any of the Navajo run tours.  There is on trail down into the park which takes you to an Anasazi ruin which is free but its a long hike not for those of us who are out of shape such as myself.  A ranger leads the hike at 7:30 if your interested although I believe you can enter anytime on your own.  The Navajo people still farm and live in the canyon which is a part of the reason you can’t go in unattended.  The fee for a tour into the canyon is around $60 according to the Park Service’s website.  I opted not to pay the money as I was interested in shooting from the rim anyway.  There are some anasazi dwellings in the canyon which you could get a lot closer to with a tour.

It was actually hard getting out of the Canyon De Chelly area.  I spent the morning/afternoon portion of the day on the south rim.  I decided to take the North Rim road after eating lunch/dinner.  The North Rim road leads to Highway 160 which takes you to 191.  I could help stopping to photograph several things along the way until the sun finally set so I just had to drive.  I ended up pulling into a rest stop south of Moab about 11:00 p.m. to sleep for the night since I couldn’t find hotel with a pricing plan I liked.  I did get pulled over by a police officer on my way out of either Blanding or Monticello, it would seem my license plate light was out.