P-bear taking in the view
Local resident
Prickly Pear
Claire deciding which monument she wants carved in her profile
Monument Valley
May 17. We spent a night at Canyon de Chelly, but eschewed the minimum $100 required guide fee for a tour of the valley. It is our third time here and we can’t bring ourselves to pay such a large fee to fully appreciate a national park. We did the one free hike possible several years ago, but think the fees are unreasonable. Something needs to be worked out with the tribe to allow gringos who are not rich to visit, or turn it back to the tribe. It never has seemed right that there is not a way for self-guided visits to the valley.
May 18. Monument Valley is a tribal park, and more reasonable with a $5 per person entry and $5 to dry camp in a spectacular spot. Our late today we hiked the one trail open to unguided hikes, 3.5 miles around one of the Mitten buttes and arrived back at Turtle just before sunset. Took much of a 512 card of photos, and will probably do it again tomorrow when we bike the 18 mile loop tomorrow. With this park, it at least is fully within the control of the Dine; at least we are allowed to bike the same loop the guided tourists take.
We got a fantastic place to park Turtle (check the photo) though I had to make him/her act like a 4 wheel drive to get there and out, the sunset view was worth it. Had one of us been prone to sleepwalking, it would have been about a dozen steps to the edge.
May 19 Bicycling Monument Valley. Great ride on a good dirt road today through some wonderful scenery. We left at sunrise and managed to do the loop at an easy pace, with lots of photo stops, and finish just as the loads of tourists began the loop, so we had no dust and we could hear the birds and smell the vegetation.
bob
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