Flagstaff and vicinity

We drove from Holbrook to Flagstaff and stopped at Walnut Canyon National Monument on the way.  It's just to the east of Flagstaff.  This is a place with more ruins from earlier Indians.  The cool thing about this is that we were able to go inside the ruins.

As with earlier ruins, the Indians left miscellaneous items of pottery but no real evidence about why they left.  The rooms were built under large overhanging rocks. The black is from the fires in the rooms.

There were dozens of ruins.  They were on an "island" created by an ox bow in the river.  We had to follow a trail down from visitor's center and across to the island.  240 steps each way!

 In the distance, we could see the peaks of the San Francisco mountains, which are just north of Flagstaff.

As you can see there are lots of trees!  This was a refreshing change from the dry places we had been the previous few days.

To the north east of Flagstaff is Sunset Crater National Memorial.  The park is based on an event fairly recent in geological terms - a volcano about 1,000 years ago.  The area around Flagstaff has been very active, with about 600 volcanoes.  Sunset Crater is the most recent.  It is a cinder cone and there were lava flows from the base of the mountain.

Here are some of the surrounding huge mounds of ash.

Since this happened fairly recently, it is still part of the oral tradition/history of the local Indian tribes.  As it was taking place, it was a spectacular event.

Matthew was able to get Junior Ranger badges from both of these places.  Another case of two in one day!