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| Walnut Canyon, Arizona |
One of the best rewards while traveling is stumbling upon something or somewhere totally unexpected. It’s like trying out a new recipe and accidentally adding a wrong ingredient, but the dish actually tastes better than expected.
I’m not sure if that is a great analogy, but bear with me.
Having traveled east and west along Interstate 40 for years, I thought I had seen it all.
But one state always surprises me with new treasures.
And that one state is Arizona.
Along Interstate 40, there are exciting destinations such as Flagstaff, Williams, and Winslow, just to name a few. There is the gateway to the Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater, Grand Canyon Caverns, and one that I have read the highway sign for but never visited: Walnut Canyon Monument, just ten miles east of Flagstaff.
I decided to stop and check out what the hubbub was with this particular monument.
On my travels, I have been to both National Parks and National Monuments, so what was the difference?
A National Park is usually a very large area that protects the ecosystem and natural scenery, and offers diverse recreational activities for the public. This has to be set aside by an act of Congress.
Examples would be Yellowstone in Wyoming or the Grand Canyon in Arizona.
A National Monument, on the other hand, is created by a presidential order (or can be an act of Congress). A monument generally preserves a specific object, structure, or natural feature of historical value.
Examples would be the Devil’s Tower in Wyoming or the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Well, it was time to visit this Walnut Canyon National Monument.
The short drive from Interstate 40 to the monument is beautiful, with tall green Ponderosa Pine and Douglas Fir lining the entrance. Being situated at nearly 6,700 feet above sea level, the variety of other trees and foliage is something to truly marvel at. And, if lucky, the traveler may catch sight of an elk or a mule deer. Soaring through the treetops, raptors may be viewed hunting for prey.
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| Looking out toward Walnut Canyon from the visitor's center |
The visitor center is situated on a sheer cliff overlooking Walnut Canyon, and the view out of the massive glass windows is nothing short of marvelous.
If the center had a bar serving an adult beverage, I may have sat there all day staring out at all the natural beauty. But, alas, they did not, and I wandered off to see what there was to see.
An ancient people known as the Sinagua lived in this canyon, as well as others in the immediate locale and other locations throughout Arizona from 1125 to approximately 1250 AD.
Sinagua is Spanish for ‘without water’. Even though there were plenty of trees and bushes, this area of Arizona lacks a substantial amount of rainfall each year and is subject to long droughts. But the Sinagua people were masters at water conservation, gathering and taking advantage of the small creek at the bottom of the canyon, which is seasonal but did provide the water needed for the settlement of Native Americans.
The canyon floor is nearly 350 feet below the cliff edge of the canyon, and at the bottom are forests of Walnut trees, thus the name of the monument.
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| Creativity was the key in living at Walnut Canyon |
These trees, as well as other varieties, offered the Sinagua a healthy diet of walnuts, acorns, and pinyon nuts. They also gathered grapes and elderberries, as well as growing their own corn and beans on the vistas of the canyon. And they hunted for food and skins with the multitudes of Bighorn Sheep, deer, and antelope that lived in the vicinity.
These folks were also believed to be traders with not only other local tribes but as far away as Central America. They were masters at handcrafted straw baskets, pottery, and clothing made from animal skins.
Evidence of the distance they traveled to trade was found by early archaeologists, who found examples of seashells from the Pacific Ocean, turquoise from Santa Fe, and even colorful macaw feathers from Mexico and Central America.
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| One of many family dwellings of the Sinagua |
But the most interesting part of this national monument is how the natives resided. There were no tents, no wooden buildings, but carved-out abodes within the limestone cliffs themselves.
Over millennia, water pounded the limestone, carving large caverns into the rock faces.
It was in these sheltered cliff dwellings that the Sinagua made their homes. The individual rooms were not large but could easily fit a family in the countless structures that can be seen today in Walnut Canyon.
They used natural stone to build walls separating one family from another, and doorways were small for both protection and comfort during all four seasons. Even smaller openings were placed toward the roof of the overhanging rock as a way to allow the smoke from the cooking or heating fires inside the rooms to escape outside, thus not causing a smoke buildup within.
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| Notice the small opening above the door to allow the smoke to escape |
With this information gleaned from the visitors center, it was time to take the one-mile hiking loop around the canyon and see firsthand the ingenuity of a people who lived here for a short one hundred years and then suddenly left.
Was it a continued drought? Was it warfare from other tribes? Or was it just time to move on?
There is no real solid evidence of why the Sinagua left the canyon, but there is plenty of evidence learned on the hike that these people used the natural surroundings far better than I bet most modern humans could.
It should be mentioned that the trail around the dwellings is pretty flat and easy, but the bloody stairs leaving from the visitor center down to the trail are not for the weak of heart. There are 368 stairs down to the trail, and that means 368 stairs back up to the center, and at an elevation gain of 185 feet, there may be a moment to take a rest and catch your breath.
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| The trail is easy, the stairs not so much |
But the burning of the lungs is worth it when the traveler wanders the trail and beholds the creative mastery of people who settled in Walnut Canyon over 900 years ago.
For more information: https://www.nps.gov/waca/index.htm
John can be reached at beyersbyways@gmail.com
