Beavertail Trail

We stopped at the Wenima Wildlife Area near Springerville Arizona to do the short Beavertail Trail (2.5 miles round trip) this morning. We were the only people on the trail, it was very peaceful.

We saw a variety of birds, a couple of cottontails and I was able to get a photo of this jack rabbit today.

The first part of the trail was in a nice shady path.

The trail follows along the Little Colorado River for quite a while. There were several beaver dams on the river.

We saw some wildflowers like theses small sunflowers today.

More river views:

another beaver dam

At the end of the trail was an old cabin.

On our hike back, we spotted some petroglyphs in a few places:

more river views on the way back:

some wildflowers and fall color seen along the trail this morning:

 

 

Tunnel Canyon

This morning we hiked into Tunnel Canyon at Canyon de Chelley National Monument on a Ranger led tour, about 4.5 miles. We enjoyed the canyon scenery, learned about the various peoples who have lived in this canyon for many centuries, the Navajos who now live here and saw some ancient dwellings and many pictograph and petroglyphs. A wonderful experience! View looking into Tunnel Canyon this morning.

Some views as we hiked down into the canyon:

High up on the canyon wall, we saw some pictographs from the basket weavers, who settled here a long time ago.

More canyon wall views:

More rock art:

Continuing into the canyon:

This part of the canyon wall looks like two enormous owls towering above us.

Scorpion rock/Petroglyph rock

named for the scorpion petroglyph near the bottom of the rock.

There are many petroglyphs from different eras on this part of the roc.

zoom of some of the petroglyphs (some are very faint):

More towering cliffs as we continue on our way.

More petroglyphs and pictographs  high up on the walls (zoomed):

An ancient dwelling site that was mostly destroyed by rock fall.

zoom

An ancient dwelling hight up in an alcove:zoom

  An ancient granary (zoom)

Rock art near this side:

Continuing back along the canyon floor:

Sleeping duck formation

Heading back out of the canyon,

going up some steps, 

through the canyon,

and up more steps.

sun over the canyon wall

Back to where we began, looking down into Tunnel Canyon.