The Breakfast
Club
An Affiliate of the
The Knife & Fork
Breakfast Club Visits Chinle, Tours Canyon de Chelly
13 Sept 2008
by Warren McIlvoy
Our September Breakfast Club event was one of those "over night" fly-ins that
do not normally get a lot of participants but are some of the most enjoyable of
the entire year. In this case, we were going to Chinle
with a tour of Canyon de Chelly. The itinerary
was to have breakfast at the Junction Restaurant that is adjacent to the
Best Western De Chelly Inn and then take a 3.5
hour jeep tour of Canyon de Chelly. Following the tour, those who choose not to
stay the night, would be able to depart and arrive back in the valley long
before dark. For the rest of the group, we would enjoy dinner together and stay
the night with a Sunday morning departure after breakfast.
My wife and I would be accompanied by Austin
Erwin (BC-86) for our early morning departure out of
By this time, many of the Breakfast Club folks had made contact via our
"group flight following" frequency. The lush green carpet of the
dense Mogollon Rim forests soon gave way to high plateau vegetation with
its countless washes and small ridges and valleys. As we proceed farther into
the reservation land, we spoted numerous small
outposts or settlements, some with names but most did not. On our last visit to
Chinle in the mid 90's we landed on a small
gravel airstrip that was for all intents and purposes, in the heart of town.
Shortly after that visit, the tribe secured funding for a real, honest to goodness,
paved airport that is located southwest of the town.
Following my usual smooth landing, we taxied to the last "official"
tie-down as the early arrivers quickly claimed the choice spots. There were
three KingAirs parked there that belonged to the medical
services that provided air transport to the northeastern part of the state.
Pilots and "crew" were busy unloading their aircraft as we waited for
the van from the Best Western De Chelly Inn.
When the van arrived, it could only take about 7-9 people at a time for the 15-
minute ride into town. They were supposed to have at least one more but that
did not happen until they were joined by some of the folks from the tour
company. Eventually we were all shuttled to the motel where we were able to
stow our gear until our rooms were available. With that chore done, we headed
to the Junction Restaurant that is right across the parking lot of the
motel office. Due to the protracted shuttle service from the airport to the
motel, some of us arrived too late for breakfast and had to settle for an early
lunch. It seems that the Navajo Reservation observes daylight-savings
time and instead of it being just after 10, it was now after 11:00.
Here is a snippet of history of the town known as "Chinle".
Chinle (Ch'ínílí
- Water Outlet) refers to the mouth of the Canyon de Chelly.
Chinle was
originally established as a government settlement along the south bank of the
de Chelly fork of the Chinle
Wash and 1 mile west of the mouth of the Canyon de Chelly.
Chinle was the site of a Chinle
Indian Boarding school established in 1910, and is the headquarters for the
Custodian of the Canyon de Chelly National Monument.
It originally was an agricultural area with 771 areas of chili, corn, squash,
peach and apple trees, and melons irrigated by homemade canals and dams. This
district runs from Chinle down the valley to the
vicinity of the
The Chinle locality is closely associated with the Canyon de Chelly and has been known to Spaniards and Mexicans since
before 1790. Spaniards and New Mexican expeditions of war and trade came here
until the beginning of the American occupation. The first visit to the locality
by American military forces occurred in the fall of 1849 under the command of
Lieutenant Colonel John Washington, accompanied by Territorial Governor, James
S. Calhoun, Captain Henry Lafayette Dodge, Lieutenant James H. Simpson, Artist
Edward Kern, and other members of Washington's command.
In the winter of 1864,
Colonel Christopher Carson, Captain Francis McCabe, and Captain Albert
Pfeiffer, accepted the surrender of the de Chelly
Navajos. This band of 50 Navajos under Hastiin Cholginih (the Humpback), and the Navajo woman Chief (Khiniba'ih), surrendered at the spot where Colonel
After our breakfast/lunch, we were met by the
folks from De Chelly Tours. They had a variety
of four wheel drive vehicles that could accommodate 3-4 people each. Once the
jeeps were loaded, we headed out towards our activity of the day, a 3-hour tour
of Canyon de Chelly. All of the jeeps had to
stop at the visitors' center to get the daily permits that are required to
enter the National Monument. Our first exposure to the Canyon was a drive
through a tree shaded dirt road that eventually turned into soft sand and
rising canyon walls.
Here
is some history on the Canyon
Canyon de Chelly National Monument was established April 1, 1931, as a unit of the
National Park Service and is located in northeastern
Its 83,840 acres
(339 km²), all
Canyon de Chelly is unique among National Park service units, as it
consists entirely of
The National
Monument was included in the National Register of Historic Places on August 25,
1970.
A spectacular
geologic feature is Spider Rock, a sandstone spire that rises 800 feet (240 m)
from the canyon floor at the junction of Canyon de Chelly
and
The name Chelly
(or Chelley) is a Spanish borrowing of the Navajo
word Tséyi', which meaning "canyon"
(literally "inside the rock" < tsé
"rock" + -yi' "inside of,
within"). The Navajo pronunciation is IPA: [tsé?i?]. The Spanish pronunciation of de Chelly was adapted into English, apparently through
modeling after a French-like spelling pronunciation, and is now pronounced
"d?sha'".
Canyon de Chelly, like many of the other ancient settlements of the high
The Canyon's walls are dotted with
cliff dwellings in various states of ruin but the most famous of them all is White
House Ruin. This site has been displayed on countless post cards and
pictures and is the only site that the day hiker can hike to without an
official Navajo guide. White House Ruin is essentially a two
level ruin. There is a part of it that is located at the base of the canyon
wall and a part that is located about 75' above it in a large recess in the
same rock face. The canyon wall continues upward
for about another 200' and is stained with large, almost black, stains that are
known as "desert varnish".
There are vast areas of the canyon floor that are very well suited for
agricultural purposes and supports a wide variety of vegetation but the
predominant soil is sand. The sand is so fine that the locals call it "desert
sugar". The jeep trails are very will defined in this soft sand but I
am quite sure that during the wet season, the
trails disappear under the flowing waters. Once the waters subside, it is the
discretion of the first of the tour vehicles to make their own trail, sort of
like the first skier on newly fallen snow.
At another site called Antelope Ruin, we stopped to get some water from
one of the vendors and to make a "pit stop" to relieve a high water
pressure warning light. As we were viewing the ruin and getting some photos, we
could hear the echos of a flute be played about a
hundred yards away. The sounds echoed off the canyon walls giving them an
almost eerie resinating sound. The Navajo
gentleman playing the flute was explaining the differences between the single
and double chambered flutes. He makes all of his flutes by hand and were highly polished and decorated. At $75.00 it was a bit
more than I would be willing to shell-out but they were about half the price if you were to purchase them elsewhere.
We had one more very special place to visit and it was the birthplace of our
driver guide Ben. A short drive off of the main trail had us approaching some
folks in front of a traditional Navajo Hogan that was next to a moderate
sized wood frame structure that was covered with black plastic. I could not see
all that well into this structure but it did have what could best be described
as a kitchen and dining area. Ben said that they had a small gas generator that
they used for the refrigerator. Ben's sister lived here on weekends as this was
their "get-a-way" home. She worked at a gas
station/convenience store in Chinle and lived in town
during the week. There were two children, maybe 6-8-years old playing in the
dirt outside the wooden structure. During her time at their "get-a-way"
home, Ben's sister weaves Indian rugs from raw materials. They raise their own
goats and sheep and on the ground was a heap of freshly shorn wool. Ben's
sister displayed the method of carding the wool, twisting it into a strand and
then spinning it into yarn. She does all of her own dying of the wool from
berries found in the canyon. She was currently working on a small rug and
demonstrated the use of the loom. Off in the distance, maybe 200 yards or so,
was another canyon wall with a cliff dwelling about 75' above the ground. On a
small rock ledge near the bottom of the canyon wall there a number of the sheep
and goats that call this place home. Although Ben was born and raised here, he
now lives in a small settlement above the northern canyon walls. Ben
stated that, although all of the land belongs to the Navajo Tribe, a
family can "purchase" a parcel of land for a mere $1.00 per year.
Since this was the last stop on the tour, it was a non-stop trip back to town.
The jeep bounced and weaved along the sandy trail. By the time that we reached
the endof the trail, my kidneys were three inches
lower and I felt like I had been through a full body work-out conducted by a
sadistic trainer. Upon reaching the motel and settling-up our tab with De Chelly Tours, it was time to take care of getting
checked-in to our motel rooms.
In a part of the building that housed the Junction Restaurant, there was
an indoor swimming pool with a separate hot tub. Since we had some time before
meeting for dinner, I decided that this might be a great opportunity to ease
the pains of the jeep tour by taking a dip in the pool and a soak in the hot
tub. For some unknown reason, I was the only one to take advantage of this
amenity.
We met for dinner around 6:30 and, although we were all in the same area, we
were seated at six different tables. Before we got too far along with our meal,
I walked around the room getting some photos of our group that I was not able
to at the morning meal. After dinner, the majority of us gathered on the patio
outside the pool area and enjoyed some good ole fashioned hangar flying and
reliving the day's activities. Before long, the chill or the evening and the
heavy eyelids took its toll and we soon broke-up and headed to our rooms for
some sack time.
After the check-out chores were done, we all gathered in front of the office
for the van ride back to the airport. Since there were only two vehicles, we
elected to shuttle the pilots first to start their pre-flight tasks before the
rest of their "crew" arrived. There were four of us that were going
to make a stop at Holbrook for some cheap(?) fuel
before heading back to the valley. Of the four planes that went to Holbrook,
three of us, about 9-people, decided to take the short hike to Denny's on the
old Route 66 have breakfast there; It was sort of like a "fly-in with-in a
fly-in". When we had first arrived and wanted to get fuel before having
breakfast, the gentleman that operates the fueling facilities was running late
to get to church so he instructed us on how to operate the credit card machine
and where to stow the key to access the fuel pump switch. How many places in
We had an absolutely marvelous weekend and I was overwhelmed by the turn-out of
so many Breakfast Club folks for this fly-in. And the best part was, we got to share it with folks who like to fly and eat.
The Chinle
Gang
What's Next?
In October, we will be traveling to Page,
Click on the Canyon
de Chelly link to view photos of this fly-in.