We skip down to Tsegi Canyon through pine and fir lit in sunlight until we cross Laguna Creek and then up Keet Seel Canyon with its chocolate-brown stream that we cross and re-cross fifty times or more following the trail until we come to a bright white waterfall tumbling down some forty feet onto slippery moss and algae that covers rocks at the bottom. From here we climb up stony ledges in the intense heat of afternoon, until, at last, we espy the ever-so-high gleaming cliff village of Keet Seel shining in the sun with sandstone living quarters for 150 souls 700 hundred years ago who busied themselves by grinding corn with a blunt mono on a sandstone metate. They kept turkeys for feathers and grew squash, corn and beans in watery seeps far below their roof of rock and woven stone as we sit and listen to their whispering spirits so alive that canyon time becomes our own.
Sincerely,
Navajo National Monument
At Navajo National Monument, you can see three well-preserved Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings. Walking trails along the mesa and into the canyon provide excellent views of these 700-year-old structures.
State(s): Arizona
Established: 1909
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