Canyon de Chelly - Day Two

The second day of the Navajo Oral History project group's visit to Canyon de Chelly was just as eventful as the first.

The morning started with a delicious breakfast of blue corn pancakes, sausage, frybread, and fruit.

The group headed out early on a hike to Bad Canyon, a small box canyon that features small ruins and some amazing rock art panels that include both pictographs (images painted or stained onto a wall) and petroglyphs (images pecked into the surface of a rock wall).

(above five photos by Nik Strand)

(above three photos by Whitney Harlos)

(above photo by Elise Nelson)

(above five photos by Darin Strohmenger)

Then the group did a longer hike around the base of Dog Rock, a large rock formation that sits at the junction of Canyon Del Muerto and Canyon de Chelly, and that looks like a reclining dog when viewed at the correct angle, from the Nave Camp.

(above photo by Nik Strand)

Shiloh Gulbranson puts her hand in a petroglyph of a bear paw on the wall below Dog Rock. (photo by Adam Maciejczak)

(above photo by Skylar Ogren)

After lunch and some time to rest, the group rode in trucks to Antelope House ruins in Canyon Del Muerto. Here is where some of the most well-preserved pictographs exist. Protected from the elements by a rock cliff-shelf, the pictographs have not eroded much in all the years since they were painted. Archaeologists estimated some of the pictographs at the Antelope House site were drawn as early as 900 A.D. Other images were added in the 1500s and 1600s when Navajos began living in and around the canyon.

(above photo by Darin Strohmenger)

(above two photos by Nik Strand)

(above photo by Elise Nelson)

While at Antelope House Ruins, the NOH 2013 group ran into Travis Terry, a well-known Native American flute player, who has produced several CDs of his music, inspired by Canyon de Chelly. He stopped to talk with the group and played an informal mini-concert.  

(above four photos by Brett Gustafson)

(above photo by Whitney Harlos)

Supper consisted of a hearty beef and vegetable stew with camp-made tortillas.

(above photo by Whitney Harlos)

Many of the students played a rowdy game of Ultimate Football in the evening before turning in for the night. Others hung around the camp fire and played silly camp games such as Queen Anne and Whoop Johnny.