Gareth Jay

Dams and Canyons

We currently are parked in the middle of nowhere. I mean seriously in the middle of nowhere. If I stood outside of Zoara (which there is no way I would be doing, considering how cold it is!) I could look in all directions and see nothing but flat plains of what I assume must be prairies.  We sit somewhere on the side of the road to Albuquerque across the Arizona – New Mexico border making tonight our last night in Arizona. Sure enough as per tradition I must make sure my travelogue is up to date before going onto the next leg of my journey.

We had now reached the 79^th day of our journey as we awoke by the side of Hoover Dam on the 20^th of March. We had arrived the night before but since pedestrians were forbidden to walk over the dam at night we had left it till the morning to explore.

Named for the 31^st president of the United States, Hoover Dam is a 221m high, 379m long, 201m wide concrete arch-gravity dam and hydroelectric power generating station that at the time of building in 1936 was the largest in the world. It was built to control the Colorado River that regularly flooded and destroyed the lives of the people living on the river’s edge. It also provides a large amount of electricity which pays for the construction and maintenance of the dam.

We had a wonder around snapping shots left right and center, and even managed to sneak into the end of a paid for tour by complete accident. Halfway across the dam is a plaque that marks the border of Nevada and Arizona. Arizona is actually the beginning of a new time zone – the Mountain Time Zone, so on the Nevada side of the dam there is a big clock saying Nevada Time and on the Arizona side another one signed Arizona Time. Ironically since at the moment Nevada is observing daylight savings and Arizona is not, the two clocks actually state the same time, even though they are supposed to be an hour apart. Never did like daylight savings mucking around with the natural order of things.

Eventually we had our fill of the dam and headed off. We got ready to spend the rest of the day driving towards the Grand Canyon – possibly Arizona’s most famous attraction.

Now we have been travelling for near on three months by this point, and through the northern hemispheres winter. Much to our disgust we have yet to see any snow other than at a distance on top of mountains. Since I have never seen snow in my life I was quite excited to eventually get to see some snow, and we had been promised by everyone that we would definitely be seeing some as we drove into the states, but as of yet – nothing.

The last place I ever expected to see it for the first time in my life was in the middle of Arizona on the way to the Grand Canyon. But there we were, me literally saying to someone in an online chat that we still had not seen snow when suddenly on the sides of the road it started appearing in clumps on the ground. Shem quickly pulled over and we ran out to the pile. Apparently this was the remains of their season of snow, most of it having already melted away. As a result according to Shem this was why the snow was the “icy stuff” as he referred to it, not the “fluffy stuff”. It kind of reminded me of a freezer that needed defrosting. The ice was a lot harder than I expected – this was due to the lack of “fluffy stuff” according to Shem. I was quite amused to see however my feet suddenly sink into the snow up to my knee as I was walking across it.

Since we had woken up in Nevada in quite a hot climate, we were certainly not dressed for the snow so upon starting to feel VERY cold we retreated back to the van and continued on until we eventually reached the Grand Canyon.

We got out of Zoara in the car park and trekked towards the canyon. From the carpark you can’t see a thing. In fact you barely see anything until you reach the cliff edge itself. Then suddenly the canyon comes into view and it is all you can see. The place is huge! 446 km long the canyon carved by the Colorado River is an impressive display of Mother Nature. The views are extremely epic and Shem and I could not believe what we were seeing. Unfortunately night was also dropping. With snow on the side of the canyon and us still dressed for hot Nevada weather we were starting to freeze so we returned to Zoara for the night, ready to trek a bit in the morning.

Waking In The Grand Canyon

I did not wake very well the next morning on account to having not slept too well the night before. There was a very definite reason for this – it was cold! Very cold! The sleeping bag I had purchased in Australia claimed to cope with temperatures as low as -8^oC but I don’t believe it, for there have been nights throughout this trip already where I have frozen overnight. Our night in the Grand Canyon I learnt later however dropped down to -8.9^oC!!!

It wasn’t till later in the morning till the sun was out and it had started to warm up that I managed to get a decent amount of sleep. Thus it was midday by the time we were exploring the Rim Trail of the Grand Canyon.

The trek along the “Rim Trail” used up a lot of photos on the camera’s memory card, including one daredevil event where we joined a group of 4 American ambulance officers (think an American version of Bevan… and 4 of them, dangerous mix) on a short climb over the edge to an overhang for more stunning views.

After reaching the Grand Canyon village we had some lunch and watched a quick Native American dance performance before taking the free shuttle bus back to Zoara

Back on the road we started heading south towards the city of Pheonix. We weren’t going to Pheonix itself though; instead we aimed for slightly north of the city to a place where another U.S. National Monument stood – Montezuma Castle. Unfortunately it was closed to the public after 5pm and we arrived around 6pm, so we decided to park outside for the night and explore the ruins in the morning.

Native American Ruins

Montezuma Castle – named for the Aztec Emperor, ironically is a national monument of the U.S. that is neither a castle or related in any way shape or form to the Aztecs. A pre-Columbian cliff dwelling, the Montezuma Castle was named thus by Europeans due to mistakenly being believed to be linked to the Aztec Emperor – not believing the local inhabitants capable of building such a structure. Apparently a lot of the native ruins in the area suffer the same misnaming.

Montezuma Castle was in fact built by the Sinaguan people, a Pueblo people who are claimed to have descendants among the Hopi people of today. As we awoke we soon entered the national grounds and was having a look around. It does look somewhat castle like, but is built up on the side of a cliff. Apparently they used ladders to get up to it.

The ranger who let us in was extremely helpful in giving advice of the various places in the local area to visit and soon we were spending the majority of the day touring around the various ancient sites. After Montezuma Castle, we headed for Montezuma Well.

Montezuma Well is a natural limestone sinkhole that has several remains of Sinaguan homes around its rim and a prehistoric canal built from it by the Sinagua to irrigate their crops – a canal that is still in use today.

From the Well we continued around the corner to the V-V Heritage site where a rock wall is home to a whole heap of ancient Native American petroglyphs. Shem and I got into a conversation with one of the volunteer rangers at this site and learnt quite a bit about the history of the place. Including the fact that the wall was deciphered only recently as a solar calendar. We were curious discover that these “ancient” and “prehistoric” sites were only about 1000 years old. Prehistoric of course referring to history before written language/history –which in the Americas proves to be a lot later than what we think of as ancient and prehistoric in the context of Europe. Christianity is older than these ruins.

From the petroglyph wall we carried onto our last ruin – the Tuzigoot National Monument. A pueblo ruins situated on the top of a hill in a valley giving it brilliant views of the approach of anyone, Tuzigoot is 2 to 3 stories of limestone and sandstone that was also built by the Sinagua people before they all mysteriously disappeared.

We learnt that the Sinaguan people lived in the area until about 1400 AD when they mysteriously disappeared. No one really knows why they left the area, Shem and I jokingly suggested it was the aliens.

Our final ruins under our belt we headed back north through Sedona and the Red Rock National Park (more fantastic photo opportunities) and then headed east again towards New Mexico.

After a full day we finally have now pulled over on the side of the road. We had stopped off in Flagstaff before heading east at a Wal-Mart where I bought myself a fleece blanket which I’m now about to trial out for what appears to be another cold night coming.

Tomorrow we head for the state of New Mexico.

Till next time,

Gareth Jay