September 21, 2010

Last day of summer, and I for one am not sad. Fall is my favorite time of year! The weather here in northern Arizona is absolutely gorgeous, and has been since we arrived. We did have high winds yesterday and it tried as hard as it could to rain-we maybe got 20 drops. But this morning dawned clear and sunny again.

I have just a few minutes before my tutoring shift begins for today, and thought I'd finish up the account of Sunday's trek into the canyons. As I recall, I had reached the point where we returned to the junction of del Muerte and de Chelly canyons. Our destination for this section was Spider Rock. If you had a chance to see them in person or Facebook, you may recall some of Budd's pictures from last winter:

This view is of course from the overlook on the South Rim. We were headed for the base.

On the way, we were treated to a view of a small arch or natural bridge in the canyon, but decided to wait and save the remaining battery life for Spider Rock. We were hoping to catch The Window, as the arch is named, on the way back. In this canyon the crossings over the wash as it meandered were extremely deep...not in terms of water, but how far the wash was cut down from the roadway. Because Mick is the chief for the Resource Management section here, he was telling us about some of the restoration and conservation efforts in the canyon system. We had known of the efforts to cut and burn the non-native trees, both Russian olive and tamarisk, but we really hadn't known why. It turns out that they draw down the water table and also are instrumental in causing the wash to cut a vertical channel, further drawing down the water table, rather than a broad V-shape. Mick's hope is that they will be able to implement a channel restoration project that will assist in returning this canyon to it's natural fertile state, with sufficient water for the needs of the residents' way of life.

When we finally spotted Spider Rock in the distance, it was even more breathtaking than when we saw it from above:

Budd took lots of pictures, but most were taken with the camera held sideways, and my viewer tells me that if I rotate them I may lose quality. I'll wait for Budd to rotate them, then post them another time. At least one was zoomed in so that we could see an ancient structure at the base of the rock, which we had been told was there last winter. It is supposedly the home of Spider Woman, one of the Holy People, who taught the Dine to weave.

Well, I'm out of time, but have more pictures to share, so will once again try to get some in tomorrow.