No two days have been as different from each other as this past Saturday and Sunday. The former’s focus was the natural world of the Southwest: hiking at Canyon de Chelly near Chinle, AZ, the site of continuous inhabitation for 800+ years and home to spectacular Ancestral Puebloan ruins, and a drive around Sedona, AZ, known for its rock formations and energy “vortexes”. The latter, after a several hours drive, centered on man’s work: Hoover Dam and Las Vegas. (I use “man” because the dam was built in the 1930s, when the workforce was overwhelmingly male, and because I don’t think any woman would want to take credit for either conceiving and “delivering” Vegas.) Saturday was also a day of unexpected and significant conversations with potential long-term implications.
Chinle, the small town closest to Canyon de Chelly (pronounced “Shay”), is in the middle of Arizona’s Navajo Nation Reservation. I stayed at a Holiday Inn just two miles from the Visitor’s Center of this National Monument in order to hike in the morning, before the sun got too strong. While the nights have gone into the high-50s and the daytime temperatures remain comfortable in the shade, the mercury climbs into the 80s under the clear skies. (The wind helps keeping it cooler, sometimes a little too much: I drove through a dust storm of several miles approaching Chinle on Friday night, which left a thin layer of red clay/sand on Baby. Several sections of the highways between Cortez, CO and Chinle had warnings about dust storms. Given the sunny and windy climate of the region, I was surprised to see little wind or solar power usage. Don’t get me started about investments in renewable energy.)
One of the largest employers in Chinle is a Native youth correctional facility, whose motto is: “Restoring Youth To A Path of Harmony”. Henry Gray, the local Navajo I met later (more on that below), alluded to a non-trivial gang and drug problem brought back by tribe members exposed to those in the big cities. It’s one thing to read about that chapter of duplicity, venality, and, yes, racism, in our government’s dealings with Native Americans, it’s another to see the continuing consequences a hundred and fifty years later. It’s here, it’s now, and it’s appalling that it exists at the outer age of our consciousness. We talk – or at least the Republicans talk – about what a great nation we are, yet, as Martin Luther King said (I think it was him), no nation can be great when a segment of its people can’t/don’t share in the opportunities to achieve the collective dream. And it becomes particularly ironic and shaming when that segment is comprised of the REAL “Americans”.
If the Native American “problem” was in my mind at all while planning this portion of my trip, it was in the far periphery. This past week has been an unexpected and eye-opening experience. I know that I have always felt embarrassed seeing the Native American craftsmen selling their work off side-walk blankets set up under the shade of the old Governor’s Palace portico in Santa Fe Plaza. I think the embarrassment came from two sources, one of them shared: knowing that they weren’t showing/selling artifacts of their culture from a position of socio-economic and political strength and completeness, and, secondly, knowing that these were proud people with a strong cultural history and identity. There was a dual element of “doing them a favor” and “getting a bargain” (exacerbated by the haggling over prices) in the transactions that disrespected the culture and, thus, the people. Contrast, for example, our regard or French or Italian-products and how/where they are purchased. We wouldn’t dream of negotiating the price of an Armani suit, a Givenchy dress, or a Vuitton bag sold in their flagship stores. And we certainly don’t feel like we are doing them a favor, almost an act of charity by our purchase: in fact, quite the opposite. Subliminally, we know those are strong cultures and countries and we gain some of their cachet and “power” by having them, much like why cannibal cultures eat the flesh of strong enemies to get their strength. But we admire (and buy) Native American jewelry, for the most part, as much for the beauty as for the bargain. (I’m happy to argue this premise with anyone who is actually reading thig blog.)
(Sorry for the diatribe: back to the travelogue…)
While touring of the Canyon de Chelly is only allowed with Ranger-led groups or licensed guides, there is one trail, to the White House Ruins, which is self-guided. Due to time constraints, this is the one I had planned on doing. The trail begins at the overlook on the canyon rim, about a ten minute ride from the Park entrance, and ends at the ruins, a couple of hundred yards after reaching the bottom of the canyon. It’s a vertical descent of about 750 feet over the course of a mile to a mile and a quarter. (It doesn’t seem like much of a distance….if the ground was flat. Because of the hike UP, back to the mesa top, the estimated time is around 2 hours for a round trip.) The trail surface is uneven in places (and warned as slippery when wet) but wide and gives a great aerobic and lower-body work-out on the return trip.
Like my visit to Carlsbad Caverns, being there early – I started down around 8:40 am – had the added advantage of having the hike down and the site mainly to myself. (I met even “earlier birds” already sweating their way up and only one person, a small, older Asian woman in a blue jacket, at the foot of the fenced-off ruins at ground level, behind which were the structures built into a horizontal gouge on the rosy-pink cliff-face some sixty or seventy feet above ground.) (The cliff face is slightly concave, curving upward for several hundred feet to the top of the canyon.).
Unlike the Cliff Palace or Balcony House at Mesa Verde National Park, where one can walk and climb (a little) around the cliff dwellings, the White House ruins, so named because the remains of the middle structure have a white-wash still visible, seem surreal because of the viewing distance and their coloring. It also feels lost and insignificant, dominated and framed by the canyon wall, which continues out of sight to the right and left.. I thought how like a grain of sand to an oyster this intrusion of mud-bricks and mortar must feel to the cliff, yet how, ultimately, each makes the whole greater than the parts alone: the oyster with a pearl, the canyon face with these physical remnants of laughter and life that it once enjoyed. The current silence contributed to that sensation of mystery and beauty, the only sounds being the soft swishing of the sand under my footsteps and the occasional bird-cry.
(I’ll have to continue in the next entry with my meeting of Henry Gray, the young Navajo, and his son as I was leaving the canyon floor for the hike up. And the eighteen hours in Las Vegas that felt like a year. Right now, it’s Tuesday morning in Los Angeles, and I’m heading to The Getty Center as soon as my laundry is dry. I’m behind in writing, but trying to catch up. I’ll have more time in Carmel on Thursday through Monday.)
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