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Canyon de Chelly
Navajo homeland canyon and national monument in northeastern Arizona
People have lived in Canyon de Chelly for nearly 5,000 years, longer than anywhere else on the Colorado Plateau, and Diné families still farm and herd sheep on its floor today. The canyon system cuts into the Defiance Plateau near Chinle, Arizona, with sandstone walls that rise from about 30 feet at the mouth to more than 1,000 feet (300 m) deep inside. Its most famous landmark, Spider Rock, is a sandstone spire about 750 feet (230 m) tall, associated in Navajo tradition with Spider Woman, who taught the Diné to weave. The Navajo name is Tséyiʼ, often translated as within the rocks.
Ancestral Puebloan villages such as White House Ruin are tucked into alcoves along the cliffs, and Hopi people farmed here before Navajo families arrived in the 1700s. The canyon also holds painful memory. In the winter of 1863–64, U.S. troops under Kit Carson marched through, destroying crops and orchards and helping force the Long Walk to Bosque Redondo. Established as a national monument in 1931, Canyon de Chelly is unique in the park system because the land remains owned by the Navajo Nation, which manages it cooperatively with the National Park Service. Apart from the White House Trail, visitors enter only with a ranger or an authorized Navajo guide.