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| Canyoneering | 2.00 Miles |
50 AEG |
| | Canyoneering | 2.00 Miles | 2 Hrs | | 1.00 mph |
| 50 ft AEG | | | | |
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| | Canyon Hiking - Non-technical; no rope; easy scrambling; occasional hand use | | A - Dry or little water; shallow or avoidable water; no wet/dry suit | | I - Short 1-2 hours |
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| no partners | | Got up and packed up camp early - wanted to get up Chinle Wash before it got too hot, the sun too broiling. Loaded the raft up with everything except the water jug - our kitchen sink, and began walking.
The people and cows had blazed a trail through the cottonwood groves and up onto the gravel benches where the river had flowed thousands of years ago. Enormous stone cobbles, worn and washed down from the San Juan Mountains were mounded up all around the mouth of the Chinle. ON a grassy plain nearby several cows and panda-faced donkeys stared at our passage.
Not long after visiting the livestock we came across a midden. Potsherds and stone flakes scattered across a slope near an arroyo. A good bet that perhaps a dwelling had existed where the arroyo now had cut, taking all the building stones on down to the river, to be ground into dust, leaving only the trash. Great time was had by all searching through the pile. I ended up finding the nicest piece, two sherds that fit together to form a palm-sized Sosi Black-on-White sherd, but Beth found some Uranium ore, which was unique in its own right.
Moving along. Down the trail. This section of the Chinle is well visited by rafters on day trips, but they don't generally stray past the first mile or two.
On the left we came across a petroglyph panel; San Juan Anthropomorphic figures, strange spirals and other figures. Down to the wash, which was mostly dry. Cliff swallow nests up under ledges, sometimes sharing the space with painted handprints and upside-down figures, other times simply suspended in space above the fluted canyon floor.
Onward upcanyon. Skirting the wash bottom, rock hopping around pools. Raccoon, raven, egret, deer mouse tracks all crossing the shiny, slimy mud. More desert varnish on the walls - and more images. Reclining flute player. Spiral leading into a wavy line leading into the foot of a figure with enormous hands, held high. Here I am! Dueling figures with ducks for heads, each pierced by an atlatl.
Beaver dam upcanyon, with a sizable lake behind it. A shallow clear trickle issuing forth from the bottom. No sign of those industrious little fellows save for their building and footprints. Recrossing the canyon after spotting a high granary with a difficult (impossible?) approach. The sun had been up for a little while now, and the rocks were really starting to radiate that heat back out. No real shade below the high ruin, which revealed and then concealed itself to us as we approached. The shelf above seemed to preserve the ruins perfectly, and we couldn't see a way up without serious climbing aides. Oh well. The rock art below the ruin made things interesting. A walking star-shield, similar to some Pueblo IV 'glyphs from New Mexico paraded across the cliff. Some Basketmaker figures. And Baseball Man. I knew the figure would be around, somewhere up the Chinle from the San Juan, but where? I hadn't a clear idea. Despite that, there he was above a slab of fallen stone; white with the red "baseball" overlaid across him. What did it mean? What did any of it mean? We'll never know. The sun beat down. The rock heated up. We turned around and headed back for the shelter of the river. |
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Wildflowers Observation Moderate
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"The only thing we did was wrong was staying in the wilderness to long...the only thing we did was right was the day we started to fight..."
-Old Spiritual
My book, The Marauders on Lulu and Amazon |
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