Naked Southwest

I awoke early-ish and headed off for a walk along a sandy road through the trees. The road, evidently used primarily by horses and llamas to judge by the hoof prints in the soft, sandy soil, led away from the motel parking lot and toward the bluffs. I had been told that I need only walk toward the bluffs to find the San Juan River. And soon enough I was there. I was tempted to take a swim despite the muddy current, but figured my companion would be doubly ticked if I not only went for an adventurous walk while she slept but also went for a dip. So headed on back, received my lashings for failing to wake her for the walk, and then headed down to breakfast.

We ate in front of a large window and watched hummingbirds feeding at a feeder hanging outside while Jim Hook, the motel owner, gave us directions for a trek out to a Navajo ruin called Fourteen Window Ruin. We parked at a dead end road just outside of Bluff and made our way across a wobbly Indiana Jones suspended bridge that spanned the San Juan River. The dusty but relatively unchallenging hike into the bluffs was discarded in favor of a cross country, bush-whacking expedition through the scrub growth that fellows explorers suggested would make a far superior approach. They neglected to mention that the land we would be crossing was private, that we would get thoroughly scratched clawing our way through the dry bush, and that we would have to climb over a barbwire fence at the base of the bluff. Looking like we had just crossed the Sahara, we finally arrived, embarrassed to have trespassed but awed by the sight of the ruins tucked along a single level of stone high up inside a cliff carved out of the colossal bluff.

We scrambled up the slope and explored the site, wondering whether it had primarily served as a home overlooking the fields, river and valley or if it had offered dry and secure storage for the grain and other agricultural products grown in the Navajo farm that still stretched along the valley floor between the bluff and the river. We sat and absorbed the view, felt the breeze blowing desert air into the shaded cliff dwellings, and tried to take some good descriptive photographs. But as usual, there was no wide-angle lens quite wide enough to capture this view. You’ll just have to visit yourself.

We returned to the car by the correct, marked path and, though it was perhaps slightly longer, we made the trip in good time despite a somewhat unfriendly looking bull which kept his red eyes on us as we hiked past. Then we headed off to the Twin Rocks Trading Post for lunch and gifts. There may be no more spectacular setting for a café and gift shop anywhere in the world. The building hunkers beneath natural red stone spires which climb precariously up into the blue dome, menacing…

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