The Magic Gate - Part 5
Living in Harmony With the Natural World
Navajo National Monument
In Northeastern Arizona, fifty miles south of
Kayenta, we stopped at the lightly visited Navajo National Monument.
Even today, with the lure of free camping, it rarely draws a crowd.
Leaving Highway 160 during our 1965 visit, we encountered a newly paved
road covering the thirteen miles to the monument. Like most National Park Service
(NPS) roads of the era, the engineers designed it for minimum impact on
its environment and for speeds of less than forty-five miles per hour.
Upon arrival at the monument, we found a new visitors’ center and a
campground with about thirty spaces. The older, more rustic campground
remained unimproved.
years of occupation, the Kayenta Anasazi abandoned these, among the last of their alcove dwelling sites. Thus, the monument’s Betatakin and Keet Seel ruins rank with Mesa Verde and Hovenweep as the last redoubts of a vanished culture. The spring-fed, relict forests in the monument’s canyons attest to the relatively recent drying of a once abundant environment. In 2008, I again visited Navajo National Monument. While camped there, I reflected on Edward Abbey’s words about the place, as written in, Desert Solitaire.
At the time, Abbey decried what he identified as the destruction of
primitive areas throughout the Southwest. This he blamed on the U.S.
Department of the Interior, which had opened many new areas to
automotive visitation. Here are his words:
“Navajo National Monument. A small, fragile,
hidden place containing two of the most beautiful cliff dwellings in the
Southwest – Keet Seel and Betatakin. This park will be difficult to
protect under heavy visitation, and for years it was understood that it
would be preserved in a primitive way so as to screen out those tourists
unwilling to drive their cars over some twenty miles of dirt road. No
longer so: the road has been paved, the campground enlarged and
modernized and the old magic destroyed.”
Times change, people change, but after his death in 1989 at age 62, Abbey's consciousness
on earth evolved no further. Abbey was both a naturalist and a
sometimes naturist. His gift was an ability to describe for his readers
the natural wonders of America’s deserts and the Colorado River. As a
self-proclaimed anarchist, he waxed poetic in his fight with the federal
government, which he saw as either disinterested or incapable of
conserving those unique and unspoiled natural resources. Although his only documented anarchistic act was to pull up some road survey stakes at Arches, Edward Abbey
often receives credit for inspiring such troglodytic and destructive
groups as the Earth Liberation Front. The counterculture energies of
the 1960s coalesced around protest, as exemplified by the movement
against the Vietnam War and “tree-spikers” in the Northern California
Redwoods. It was an age of “pushing against”, whose legacy is with us
still. Our “wars” on poverty, terror, drugs and teenage pregnancy are
but a few examples of our vain attempts to fight against that which is
intangible.
That morning, I sat quietly in the campground that
Abbey decried as a modern abomination. There, I opened a channel to
Abbey’s non-physical consciousness. Feeling that angst and anger at the
time of his death may have trapped him in the near-earth realms, I
asked his spirit to accompany me on a tour of the area. Although there
was no verbal or visual communication between us, I like to think that I
allowed his spirit to see Navajo National Monument as I knew and loved
it.
Bypassing the visitors’ center, we walked along the
pathway towards the Betatakin (ledge house) Ruin, about a mile away. In
an attempt to protect these fragile alcove dwellings, the NPS placed
its only Betatakin viewpoint on the rim of the canyon opposite the
ruins. If you visit, remember to take your field glasses. Since
Betatakin’s natural amphitheater amplifies sound energy, signs admonish
visitors not to make loud noises. As with the Walls of Jericho, a
single loud noise could weaken or destroy this well-preserved
pre-Puebloan settlement.
Returning on foot to Abbey’s despised campground, we
found its thirty spaces artfully sited near the western edge of Sunset
Mesa. From its 7500-foot elevation, the terrain falls away gently for
fifty miles, all the way to Lake Powell, Arizona. The aptly named Sunset Campground provides among the longest views in the Four Corners.
Even today, the campsites accommodate rigs no longer
than thirty feet, so the larger RVs must go elsewhere. Tap water is
available, but there is no store, public shower or RV sanitary dump.
During his two summers at the old Arches National Monument, Abbey lived in a thirty-foot house trailer.
I smiled in disbelief that his spirit might wish to deny others a brief
but similar physical experience in this beautiful place.
Later, as I drove away from Navajo National Monument, I reflected on the term “arrested decay”,
coined to describe preservation activities at Bodie, a ghost town in
California. By limiting direct access to these sites, the NPS has done
what it can to arrest the decay of ruins at Navajo National Monument.
From its visitors’ center to the roads, trails and campground, the NPS
seems to have listened to Edward Abbey’s spirit. After its 1960s
improvements, the monument has changed very little over the past
forty-five years.
As I departed Navajo National Monument, I found
myself in agreement with Abbey on one thing. Despite its supposed
ruination in his time, I hoped that this serene and beautiful place
would enjoy its current state of arrested decay long into the future.
Thank you, Edward Abbey for the true spirit of your work
In 1965, after two weeks in the Four Corners, my
father and I again crossed through the magic gate, represented by the
Santa Fe Railroad grade crossing at Flagstaff. From there, we retraced
our route back to Los Angeles. After returning home, I entered my
senior year in high school, then on to college and work life. For the
next forty years, as did our old snapshots, memories of the Four Corners
faded from my mind.
Each year since 2004, I have made it a point to
travel and live for a time somewhere in the Four Corners. While writing
this personal history at my home, near Los Angeles, I could feel the
Four Corners calling to me. Three months from now, I shall pack my
belongings and enter again through the magic gate to what some call
Indian Country and others call the Four Corners.
By James McGillis at 01:05 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link
