Four Corners to Tuba City (photos)

Four Corners & Tuba City. Mffft. (Add California City to the mffft list. No there there.) Not impressed. The Navajo Nation have monitized the stateline boundaries and turned Four Corners into a tacky theme park. Define tourist trap. So irritated that there was an admission fee of $5 per person. I preferred the old geodetic marker without all the fanfare, and you could see clearly into all four states. Not that there was a lot to see.

The theme seems to be a build it and they will come mentality. Now the once unfettered view into four states is surrounded by a sea of concrete: a cement plaza, an auditorium, kiosks where native artisans sell trinkets, and portapotties. Tourists just love this stuff. Think they're getting a piece of the action. They need to be officially told with little plaques that they're having an authentic experience.

It's an artificial boundary after all. Really? Do they also charge the San Juan River admission? We parked under the Four Corners sign and argued about going in.

But the day was drawing to a close, and there was no place to stay for us Bilagáana at Four Corners, or at Teec Nos Pos (a circle of cottonwoods) which consist of a trading post a DMV, and a post office (cheap gas!), so we took a miss on Chaco Canyon. We'd just come from Kayenta (Tó Dínéeshzhee), a dry town of many churches, and didn't want to retrace our steps. Besides, there was only the ostentatious pricy Hampton Inn. We didn't know about the only other motel in Kayenta, the Wetherill Inn (no wifi). Notes for next time.



Agathla Peak (Aghaałą́—wool-gathering), or El Capitán, a sacred peak.

According to Wiki, Agathla Peak, at 7,099 ft, is a volcanic diatreme, or an eroded plug that rises more than 1,500' feet above the valley floor. Think of it as the many-chambered heart of the volcano. The breccia, cut by dyke arteries, and an unusual igneous rock, minette, are 25 million years old. Seconded only by Shiprock, these astounding monumental rocks are part of the Navajo Volcanic Field. By contrast, Monument Valley's minaret reefs are comprised of sandstone.

Church Rock, just east of Kayenta, near on the Navajo Trail (US 160), was astoundingly beautiful at sunset. I was not expecting that. I thought Agathla Peak and its sidekick, Chaistla Butte, or Little Capitán, were the the crown jewels. I didn't even know about Church Rock (we entered Kayenta late at night), so its surprise beauty was doubly astounding. No time to stop, we were chasing twilight. Neil wouldn't stop the car for photos, so I watched it whizz by in the rear-view mirror. All I have is a drive-by memory of Diatreme Alley.

Church Rock? or another outcrop on 160. It was a cathedral of a rock.

We followed the Navajo Trail through the canyon all the way to Tuba City. So much for seeing the Painted Desert in the dark.

In Tuba City Hopi and Navajo tension is palpable. Cop presence everywhere. Most of the police in front of Denny's and a monstrous casino/hotel are Hopi. We got questioned by the Navajo Police in a MacDonald's parking lot for sitting in our car. I was trying to find a motel on the iPad, So much for the free wifi at MacDonalds. Don't ever loiter in Tuba City.

Tony Hillerman's memorable character Sgt. Jim Chee, caught straddling two worlds, was a Tuba City Navajo Police officer. He left Tuba City behind—probably for a good reason.

Tuba City was named after Tuuvi, a Hopi leader who converted to Mormonism. He brought the Mormans in. Must explain the third arm of tension here. Tuvi means outcast or rejected one. The Navajo name Tó Naneesdizí means tangled waters, which is a good a metaphor as any. What was the Paiute name? There are two time zones here. Then there's Navajo time.

Speaking on the measurement of time, we also missed out on seeing the dinosaur tracks and visiting the Navajo Code Talkers museum. Tuba City, a boomtown, struck it rich on uranium, is an uneasy city.  I just wanted to get out of Dodge. I don't want to see that kind of glowing desert landscapes.

We gassed up (a full tank is a must, gas stations are few and far between. Gas is also cheaper on the reservations), We pushed onto Flagstaff during the wee hours and were met with hellacious rain! Next morning it was snowing at the pass above Flagstaff so we abandoned our Grand Canyon plans. Road closed. Revisiting Wupatki was our grand consolation prize.

I think this is Chaistla Butte, or Little Capitán.

added, extensively revised 4/17
(I got into it! You never know when a line or two will yield a post.)
from very skimpy Facebook notes

Across Navajolands, (photos)

We've been traveling for travel's sake across Navajolands to see what was there. We took a jeep deep into the back country with a new friend who lives in the canyon where we're staying. Though he's lived here for over a year, he's still discovering new places. Bill was a medic in the army, and serves as a nurse health practitioner at the Diné Health Clinic, so we're in good hands.

The jeep lumbers over rock reefs, and surfs and bucks in deep red sand. We yell Heehaw! Sing Surfin' USA. Myriad tracks braid their way through the bluffs and gullies of Mystery Valley, I worry about getting lost, but Bill's son, young Samuel from Brazil knows the way. He leads us unerringly through the slot canyons to the arches, and holes in the walls.

The sandstone hills are steep. I scramble on hands and knees. My knee braces are only of so much use, so I can't see the inside of the Toilet Bowl. I scoot down cliffs on my butt when all else fails. I cannot crawl on my hands and knees for my knees cannot take any pressure. again with my hands and elbows and drag my body along like a gila monster.  I can't fathom using the handholds etched into cliffs. Not on the descent.

Yesterday we traversed Anvil Mesa where a petrified forest once stood. Downed logs the size of young redwoods, turned to stone, as if they had gazed upon Medusa's eyes. Some trees looked like huge swamp cypresses. Not junipers. The brewing storm had us shrieking as we stood patiently for the obligatory photographs, as an arm of lightning, the size of a vast tree limb, struck behind the photographer. Talk about using a flash.

Last night I dreamed that I ran into an old childhood friend at the ruins. It was an odd telescoping of time. What was Pete Sutton doing in my dream? It was great to see him. We reconnected on Facebook, but I haven't physically seen him in decades. Was a time when I saw Pete almost daily in the ceramics lab at College of Marin. I realized we had a common shared  history. If anyone would understand, it was Pete. A spirit guide of sorts. 

We found makeshift homage altars made of potshards and food offerings of tiny teosinte cobs at the Kayenta Anasazi pueblos. I was explaining to our hosts how the pots were made. How the thin walls were made by hand—by touch, not sight. A I demonstrated the process, I felt the secret fleshy curve of the long dead potter’s thumb. I explain that some pots were formed by pressing them into baskets, or against woven mats, others were pinch pots. I didn't see any evidence of coil pots.

The Anasazi used a slow black reduction firing, the designs were painted on with calcium and iron ore stains, no glaze was used. The pots were burnished with smooth stones to align the silica spicules in the clay. I rub shards thousands of years old, still smooth as skin, against my lip.

The Navajo or Diné people are superstitious, they won't visit the ruins, they say there are ghosts and evil buried within bone. The Anasazi are not their ancestors, however they are the caretakers of the land.  If the Navajo guides do visit, they lay shards as offerings to belay any present danger. Leaving shards in remembrance for the Anasazi ancestors. There are many shards stacked up. The infrequent tourists have followed suit. Better than everyone taking a small shard home. 

Suddenly I remembered our pottery teachers Jim Brown and Thano Johnson telling us how to construct pots when we were young. I explain to young Samuel and Sarah how the pots were made, using the models at hand. In that split-second I realized that I was passing the old knowledge onto the next generation.

VERMILION CASTLE

VERMILION CASTLE

At Bowery Creek, the cottonwoods

undress themselves for the fall,

maples combust against

Navajo sandstone so red,

it makes the deer seem green.

Down from the summer pastures,

the Herefords part around the car

like the Red Sea. The cowboy tips his hat,

says his smile will break my camera.

Lariat ready for strays, he whistles

to the cattle milling at the stop sign.

A redtail hawk hovers above us,

vermilion spires pierce the sky.

Quaking aspens whisper sunlight

to the patches of first snow

and I am far from home.

9/21/93  Utah

PETROGLYPHS TO THE SUN, PAROWAN GAP

PETROGLYPHS TO THE SUN, PAROWAN GAP

The snake seeks the sun

crawling to the sky, a ladder

for the small spider gods

and the continuation of day.

Equinox. Sun and moon

and the trail to the sky is open

to the orbital continuation of days.

Amid the debris of the 20th century,

I am looking for the symmetry of worked stone,

finding only crystalline structures

in the desert varnish, the exposed marble,

the crushed hearts of riverstones,

and other signs of ancient oceans.

What of those concentric circles

with an upraised hand?

The beseeching of water, the labyrinth?

Is it the snake or lightning

that climbs up the rocks to the sky?

Hands at the end of the path to guide us—

At the four corners, an intersection.

The division of power—a circle and a cross.

At least the wind knows its own strength.

We are gathering rocks for those who will follow

the small hidden selves—

I am looking for symptoms of earlier cultures

than the amber glass, cans & cigarette butts

that will survive us.

9/21/93 Parowan Gap, Utah

1994 Steelhead Special

MYTHICS

MYTHICS

Dendridic clouds, juniper, yarrow & aster.

Yesterday’s pronghorn and road signs glow

amber and red as if lit from within.

Turquoise and jade greet the sunset—

I gather cedar and sage for smudge sticks.

The power lines, ancient symbols of man

carry electricity west. Equinox.

We are eclipsed by technology,

and the urgency of fall light.

Amid the rows of new-mown alfalfa

a tumbleweed gallops to the horizon.

We talk of horses, Sinead O’Connor sings,

England’s not the mythical land 

of Madam Georgian roses…

We pass a hogan—earth household.

A meadowlark collides with the car,

death on the wing, by the roadside,

wild cotton, bluebirds weaving the air.

9/21/93  Parowan Gap, Utah