Walnut Canyon National Monument

Walnut Canyon National Monument - October 12, 2003

Walnut Canyon

Walnut Canyon National Monument is located in the vicinity of Flagstaff, Arizona. It is another location in which Indians built and lived in the 13th and 14th centuries, much like Mesa Verde, Wupatki (which is very close by), Gila Cliff Dwellings, Hovenweep, Tuzigoot, Montezuma's Castle, and Canyon de Chelly (the last three in this group I have not yet visited). Walnut Canyon was home to the Sinagua, which are presumed to be the ancestors of the current Hopi Indians. I found out there were two "tribes" of Sinigua - the northern and the southern. The northern inhabited Walnut Canyon and Wupatki, the southern Tuzigoot and Montezuma's Castle.

Walnut Canyon is so named for the walnuts that grow at the floor of the canyon. There is little water in the area - somehow, the Sinigua were able to make it work with very little. They did farm the top of the canyons and on terraces in the sides of the canyon walls. Sometime before 1250, they left the canyon and were (probably) eventually assimilated into the Hopi.

There is a paved path that leads from the visitor's center down into the canyon. At the bottom of the path, it loops around a hillside that contains most of the dwellings, like the one at the top of this page. The walk down is relatively pleasant, not very strenuous at all. But what goes down must come up. The return journey is not quite as relaxed. Walnut Canyon is at about a 7,000 foot elevation, as are most of the places I seem to visit. Not a lot of oxygen way up there.

The walk up, down, and around took about an hour to an hour and a half. Really, after you take the canyon walk, there is not much to see here. The ruins were pretty impressive in that they have survived time, natural disaster, and man; late in the 19th century, souvenir hunters descended on the canyon and removed many objects that had been left behind. They also, for reasons I simply cannot fathom, literally blew up some of the dwellings. To preserve the canyon, it was designated a national monument in 1915.