The clouds continued to build but we figured it was still early enough that we'd be out of the canyon before the storms got wound up. A least we hoped so. Of greater concern was the long, hot climb out and the 30 miles of dirt road.
-
-
It occurred to me as we beat our hasty retreat how opposite my feelings about this place were from those ancient americans whose place this had been. To me, this was the middle of nowhere. For them, this had been the middle of everywhere. I needed to get out of here to feel safe and secure. They needed to be in this place to survive. There was water here and game and shelter even. This canyon was their sanctuary.
-
I got the idea somehow that some of the figures in the Great Gallery might represent this and other canyons. Their shapes resemble the flat-bottomed V of these canyons and the stripes and other features might be descriptive of the attributes of different canyons or sections of this canyon system. Some of the pictographs have animal figures in them. Perhaps some canyons were known for good hunting. One can only wonder.