Saturday 18th February – Walnut Creek canyon

We were in no rush to move off this morning as we had an unusually late check-out time of 1pm.  Back along the I40 towards Flagstaff, back the way we had driven yesterday, which we don’t normally like to do but we had made the exception for the meteor crater. The weather was quite threatening looking, dark grey clouds blocking out the surrounding mountains.  It was only half an hour down the road to Walnut Creek Canyon National Monument.  Entry was included with our National parks pass, so we must be honest and say that we probably wouldn’t have stopped there if we’d had to pay anything!  We are now quids-in (sorry, that should be dollars-in) every time we stop at one of the locations.

A haze hung over the canyon until the cloud suddenly cleared

We pulled up at the visitor’s centre with the threatening clouds looming above us so I went in to find out the situation.  To be able to access the Puebloan cliff-dwellings rather than just seeing them from a distance we would need to do the island trail which I was told would take 45 minutes to an hour and contained numerous steep steps.  I returned to the RV where Simon had started putting lunch together and gently broke the news.  We agreed to have lunch and see what the weather was doing before we made our final decision.  Waterproofs and walking boots donned, the skies opened as we walked towards the VC.  However, by spending just a couple of minutes looking at museum displays and the view over the canyon the rain suddenly stopped and the sky brightened.  We had no excuse now and compared to our canyon trek this would be a breeze!

The view down the steps to the 'island' of rock we would be walking around

The canyon contains the remains of homes built into ledges in the limestone rock by the Sinaguan people, known for their ability to survive with little access to water.  The community here flourished between roughly 1125-1250.  Basically, the community took advantage of the fact that the rock ledges provided the back wall and ceiling of their homes so that they only needed to build connecting walls (right)…. Clever! Even without the dwellings and the history the canyon was stunning, and contained interesting rock formations.

From this location we could see the remains of other homes across the canyon from where we were standing

We were extremely lucky, the rain did not return while we were out walking and we were glad that we’d made the effort to visit.  By this time it was 330pm in the afternoon and we knew that our next national monument was about an hour away, so we wouldn’t have time to fit that in today.  I did some research on Passport America and found a site in Camp Verde that would be a great stopping point.

We arrived at ‘Krazy K’ RV Park at 530pm.  A large section of the journey had been downhill so we’d reduced our elevation by over 2000 feet.  Hopefully meaning that it would be getting warmer.... But no drier!  After we’d set up for the evening torrential rain set in for the remainder of the night.