Canyon de Chelly National Monument

Canyon de Chelly is one of the most spectacular landscapes in the American Southwest — a system of two deeply incised canyons, Canyon de Chelly and Canyon del Muerto, carved into the red Defiance Plateau with sheer walls rising up to 300 metres. Ancient Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings are visible from the rim drives, tucked into alcoves hundreds of feet above the canyon floor. Navajo families still farm the canyon floor below.

The monument is unique in that it is jointly administered by the National Park Service and the Navajo Nation, and Navajo families still live and farm within it. The south and north rim drives offer overlooks along the canyon edge. Most of the canyon interior requires a Navajo guide. The visitor centre near the canyon mouth has good exhibits on both Ancestral Puebloan and Navajo history.

things to do sight landscape
A story
Ancestral Puebloans lived in Canyon de Chelly for over a thousand years, building cliff dwellings high in the sandstone alcoves. But in 1864 the US Army under Kit Carson drove the Navajo people from the canyon and marched them 300 miles to a reservation at Bosque Redondo, New Mexico — a forced relocation known as the Long Walk. After four years of suffering, the Navajo were allowed to return. Canyon de Chelly has been home to Navajo families ever since, and the ruins of the Ancestral Puebloans share the canyon with living farms and hogans.