Walnut Creek Canyon, Arizona

Continuing with the last full day with the Parents

As there were no other people on the trail, we could not get others to take our picture together, so we took each couple separately:

After we took the walk on the first trail at Walnut Creek Canyon, we decided we needed something to eat, so we had a picnic in the shade on the top part of the canyon.Mom took this one of us, so we returned the favor, and took one of them.

Once we were finished with the lunch, we went walking back to our truck, put everything but our water and cameras back, and took a couple of pictures at the top, before heading down the 240 stairs (No I did not count them, but that is what the brochure said there was!) The first trail was ~0.7 miles and the second was 0.9 miles which passes by 25 of the cliff dwelling rooms. We probably took pictures of several of them. It is amazing to me, but I would imagine that the people were smaller than we are now, as Dad (being 6'5") could have hit his head on many of the roofs. But some of the rooms were larger. Check it out below:

This was a tree that we saw on the side of the trail, it looked so beautiful that I had to take its picture.
This was one of the first cliff dwellings that we saw as we were going down. Obviously, we should stay on the trail, they put that sign there because there are those that do not pay attention to the signs. Which of course, is not right at all.
Sasha on the trail: He usually has no problem going down, but more problem going up, while I take my time going down and love going up. I think that is because I am afraid of falling down, I have had many experiences in my geology days where I fell down a mountain or two. Most of them happened out west, while I was working in Montana on dinosaur digs or at field camp. Sometimes the rocks are so slippery, it is easy to fall. So I am more careful now.

Here is a picture of the stairs looking up, which we will do shortly. I took this picture after going down, just to see where I had been. As you can see, there are dwellings within the cliffs. If you need to see them more closely, just click on the picture and it will give you the larger view. Here is another picture of the cliff dwellings over on the other side of the canyon. They had dwellings on both sides, so that winter one side, summer another side. Looking at a dwelling close up. Again, got to love the national and state parks, they allow you to see so much.

OK How do they fit through that hole? I am 6 feet tall and so is Sasha (Mom being the short one in our group at only 5 feet, 10 inches.) But even a five foot person, well, I realize they would have to duck, but still, seems quite small. Dad took this picture, but of course, he would not have been able to stand straight up if he was in the picture, he would have hit his head. And the rock here is very hard.

That is all the pictures for now, as I am being called to dinner. But I will upload more to www.ImageShack.us and then you can see what else we did that day. To see the previous post about the last full day: http://laura-n-sasha.blogspot.com/2006/07/last-full-day-in-arizona.html