Page 69 - LKP18 Flip Book

12 RECREATION AREAS
2018
Pipe Spring National Monument
928-643-7105
www.nps.gov/pisp
HC 65 Box 5, 406 Pipe Spring Road, Fredonia, AZ
Pipe Spring National Monument, a little known part of the National Park System, is rich with American Indian, early explorer, and Mormon pioneer history. The water of Pipe Spring has made it possible for plants, animals, and people to live in this dry, desert region. Ancestral Puebloans and Kaibab Paiute Indians gathered grass seeds, hunted animals, and raised crops near the springs for at least 1,000 years. In the 1860s Mormon pioneers brought cattle to the area and by 1872, a fort was built over the main spring. The fort, called “Winsor Castle” was built by the Mormon Church to be the headquarters of a large cattle ranching operation. In 1923, the Pipe Spring ranch was purchased and set aside as a national monument. Today a visitor center and museum offer tours
of Winsor Castle and summer “living history” demonstrations, giving us a glimpse of American Indian and pioneer life in the Old West.
Navajo National Monument
928-672-2700
www.nps.gov/nava
PO Box 7717, Shonto, AZ
Navajo National Monument preserves three of
the most intact cliff dwellings of the ancestral Puebloan people (Hisatsinom). The Navajo people who live here today call these ancient ones “Anasazi.”The monument features a visitors center, two short self-guided mesa top trails, two small campgrounds, and a picnic area. The two major ruins to see are the Keet Seel and the Betatakin. The Betatakin is a 135-room cliff dwelling resting within a 500 ft. cliff. Hikes through these areas can be set up with a ranger, but be prepared for a 3
to 5 hour round trip that descends 700 ft. to the canyon floor.
Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park
435-727-5870
www.navajonationparks.org
On Highway 163, PO Box 360289
Monument Valley, UT
Sprawling across southeastern Utah and northern Arizona, Monument Valley provides perhaps
the most enduring and definitive images of
the American West. The isolated red mesas and buttes surrounded by empty, sandy desert have been filmed and photographed countless times over the years. Because of this, the area may seem quite familiar and it is soon evident that
the natural colors really are as bright and deep
as portrayed in pictures. The valley is not a valley in the conventional sense, but rather a wide flat, sometimes desolate, landscape interrupted by the crumbling formations rising hundreds of feet into the air, the last remnants of the sandstone layers that once covered the entire region.
Although much can be appreciated from the main road, a lot more of the landscape is hidden from view behind long straight cliffs within the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. From the visitor center there are good views across three of the valley’s most photographed peaks—east and west Mitten Buttes and Merrick Butte. The view from the visitor center is spectacular enough, but most of the park can only be seen from the Valley Drive, a 17-mile dirt road, which starts at the center and goes southeast amongst the towering cliffs and mesas, which include The Totem Pole, an oft-photographed spire of rock 300 ft. high, but only a few meters wide.
Pipe Springs
RECREATION AREAS