Why You Should Check Out The Walnut Canyon National Monument!
As your driving west ward Highway 40 or the old Route 66 near Flagstaff, Arizona. A road sign will say Walnut Canyon National Park which so many people skip because they are too interested in getting to Antelope Canyon (about 2 hours away) or the Petrified Forest National Park (about 1 1/2 hours away) or the Grand Canyon (about 1 3/4 hours away) or back home. But this is not the place to skip.
If you are in really good shape then it is about a 1 or 2 hour stop. For out of shape history buffs like me, it takes a bit longer as you start you trip with a movie at the Visitor Center. Then you have two choices, the Rim Trail and the Island Trail.
I got there late so I did not get to see the movie all the way through and just a quick peek at the museum but it looked very neat. But I had to be on the Island Trail by a certain time and I wanted to do the Island Trail more than anything else. The park closes at 5pm but check the website as their hours change depending on the season and they are closed during the winter as the ice could be a safety issue!
The Rim Trail is good for almost everyone and is mainly a flat loop. It is 0.7 miles long. It walks around the Rim of the Canyon and looks down on the Cliff Dwellings below. It is also the only place that you can walk your pets on as the Island Trail does not allow pets on it and highly advised that pets not be left in a vehicle alone.
The Island Trail is very different from the Rim Trail and you have start it by 3:30pm. The Island Trail starts with a decent down of 185 feet from the Visitor Center to 25 Cliff Dwellings. It is only a mile long but they have 273 steps straight down which means 546 steps total. If you have any mobility issues then this is not the place for you. Personally, I would not want to take small children on the Island Trail and for older children, I would want at least one adult per child.
On your hike make sure that you take lots of water! It might be only a mile long but it is Arizona heat and at a high elevation. I was lucky that the weather was mild when I went. But I still drank a bottle of water. I generally don’t need water on a short hike.
Water also helps with adjusting to the high elevations of the area, i.e. Flagstaff is about 6,900 feet elevation and is one of the highest elevations in the United States at 1.3 miles above sea level. It is even higher than Denver which is at a mile high!
I am not a fan of heights but I am a fan of history so I went down those stairs with my legs burning on the way up with lots of stops. My lungs were not too happy either. The trail then goes around a rocky butte which was made by the Walnut Creek over the years. Even before going down the stairs you can see cliff dwellings across the way. Those are not for going into except for educational personal except twice a year. If your interested in these special hikes, check out the website. These hikes are ranger lead and only a few time per year. This site does not have any backcountry hiking available to save the fragile environment.
The view is just breathtaking. The path is wide but looking down into the valley is a bit of a vertigo experience. In addition, the path is mostly next to areas that go mostly straight down without railing. Watch your step.
Technical, before the pandemic, you can go either left or right. But your best bet is to think about the where the sun is going to be and when you will be in it. If it is warm out and late in the day, go to the right and get the sun first and shade later. If it is warm out and early in the day, go to the left. It is best to get the sun at the beginning of the hike and cool down before heading back up the stair later.
Just across from the Island trail is lot of cliff dwellings. The whole valley is just dwelling after dwelling. But the creek is so far down that you can’t even see it. The people that lived here were named the people without water. The area has very little rainfall even now. These people learned how to keep every drop that they had!
This little hike around the island give you a taste of visiting with the past. You get to walk along side and see a lifestyle of those in the past. I just image that the couples that can see each other but what a walk for a young man that wanted to court the girl across the divide. He would have to be very dedicated to visit her!
They believe that the dwellings were created around 1100 AD and abandon around 1250 AD. But if you visit the area, a lot of people started to abandon their villages around 1250 AD.
Most of the dwellings have lost their walls but a few still have them on this little trip around the island. The doors are so small which must of kept heat in during the winter months and cooled the population during the summer months. But those small openings also let you remember that we as humans were once shorter then we were before.
But the area is not completely void of life. As I found this guy just hang out by the trail! He was just so cute looking at everyone walking by and sunning himself on the rocks.
This is one of those places that you should visit if you are driving by. Due to the fact that it is only half a day trip and/or a great place to have a picnic. (Tables are available near the parking lot.) It is more of a place to visit as you are passing by rather than a destination but it is right between several larger National Parks and just outside Flagstaff, New Mexico which has a lot of things to see and do!
Brief History
The Sinagua tribe moved into the San Francisco Volcanic area around Flagstaff around 600 AD. About 400 years later, the volcanoes around Flagstaff actually erupted and changed the way they lived. The volcano ash made the ground very fertile and about 60 years after the eruptions, the Sinagua started making the cliff dwellings in the Walnut Canyon around 1100 AD.
Only to abandon them in 1250 AD, which is about the same time that a lot of the Southwest Native people left and/or disappeared from the areas around the Southwest. The question has always been why did they disappear. Studies are saying that environmental issues may have been an issue created a hotter environment and less water for those that already had water issues.
About 1250 AD was the end of the world for so many of the Natives across the Southwest not only the Sinagua. So many tribes disappeared. The answer is out there but we still haven’t found it. But if climate was the main factor then we really need to look at our current climate issues.
With major changes in the environment, diseases like Covid19 would go through the population or even just the normal flu becomes deadly. With less food and water available then the population is less likely to be able to fight these diseases off.
A theory of mine is that Mount Samalas went up in 1257. They believe that it triggered the Little Ice Age. If anyone wants to write a book, please contact me. I have lots of information and would love to help direct the book that talks about how this volano not only triggered major changes in Europe but took out complete civilizations in the Southwest Native populations. Facebook: penelopepercivaltravels
Every where I was traveling was talking about Natives disappearing during the 1250’s from Oklahoma to New Mexico. The timing is right and the eruption took years to correct a livable environment for places all over the world!
To the best of historical knowledge, the Walnut Creek Natives, the Sinagua died off during the 1250’s at the worst case or the few that survived this catastrophic event were assimilated into the Hopi Natives.