In the Valley of Dreams
Would the third time be the charm? I'm givin' it another go to visit this remote, bizarre area in Western New Mexico. The first time, I was rained out. I was in Chaco Canyon just a shadow south of there, and barely made it out of the 23-mile stretch of slick and sticky clay soil. My friends got stuck and had to spend the night in their truck. The second time, the weather plunged, as I awoke in Farmington to minus 3 degrees. I looked at the forecasts with a high of 21 degrees and 20-30 mph winds. Nope. It's not so much the temp, but the razor-burning wind that triggered alterations.
Setting east motion out of Flagstaff in the morning, Christine and I were cruising into the sunrise, skirting past the San Francisco Peaks and out onto the flats of Navjoland. Rumbling along Highway 40, overlapping the haunting stretch of old Route 66, we were eating up miles of desert and time, as the playlist strummed a mix of current country and old-school rock. Outpacing blink-of-an-eye towns that once dominated this route, the further we trekked, the more the music became secondary. I became entranced by the beauty of the high desert. I realized the views hadn't changed, but the dwellings had tarnished over time into historic icons begging you to exit the highway and partake in their once-famous curios.
By midmorning, we passed through Gallup and veered North on a lonely native stretch formerly the Devil's Highway 666, now 491, that twisted and passed over endless scars of dry riverbeds. Finally veering off pavement, we headed down twenty-plus miles of gravel road, the smile on my face intensified with the crunchy ballad of chert gravel crunching under my tires. In my trance of relish, I missed the turn as the scant road to my left was barely visible. Backing up a bit... I turn and throw it into 4-wheel drive. Slowly crawling over soft dunes and rock shelves, my GPS grew confused as my tires kicked up chalky clouds of gray silt. A few more missed turns, and I went to intuition mode, pointing in the northwestern direction where we crested a hill to join a couple of other dust-caked vehicles. Yep, we're in the right spot. This is the Ah-Shi-Sle-Pa Wilderness.
Gathering gear and strapping on cameras, we hiked to the edge, and suddenly the world plunged to layers of painted stone where silence lay below. I looked at my phone's GPS and saw where we needed to head. Dropping down into a valley, we eagerly approach otherworldly, bizarre rock structures, trying to make sense of them. It's like piercing a curtain into another planet. Awe, the name "Valley of Dreams" is starting to fit the reality—the odd rock formations that look less like anything Earth-made and more like sculptures dreamt by a feverish alien. Hoodoos with impossible balances. Rocks shaped like mushrooms, toadstools, and frozen stone wings that stretched outward, yearning to fly. As I slowly creep, it's pulling me in, my shutter clicking in succession of footsteps, I lower my camera and realize I am surrounded by obscurity and Awe—time to stand in silence and let it all soak in.
I am here, it's happening this time!
Trekking further across the valley, we hit another jagged outcropped mesa far from any world of sense. The ground under my feet is pale, cracked clay with sable veins and beaming shards of crimson stone cast about. The air is scented of dry, minerally flint, the sky cast with a web of low clouds attached to the rocks, and chemtrails lead up into the endlessly blue depths of a now bizarre scape. I am overcome with feelings of uneasiness and wonderment. There are no signs, fences, or people—just occasional whisps of wind leading into an eerie, reverent scene, meandering no path.
We instinctively flow to formations, pulled by magnetism, as layered shapes and shadows present. One looks like a cathedral melted by time. Another resembled a lizard's skull sticking out of the sand. We stopped often, circling the formations, crouching to study the sediment lines—layers of ancient mudstone and ash, preserved as fossilized dreams. Look! An out-of-place petrified tree trunk that hasn't moved in 200 million years.
Click on the images below to enlarge.
At one point, we flowed into a stone pillar amphitheater carved into the mesa, the base streaked horizontally in ebony crusted soil. We sauntered aimlessly in silence, with repeated murmings of "Oh My God" staring at the stone-capped spires encircling us.
Around another bend, a copper pattern slithers... It's a beautiful Sonoran Gopher snake, having no trepidation as I maneuver to capture this scarce scene.
As we skirted around the west maze-cracked mesa, the wind exhaled soft breaths of curiosity, the hair on my arms arose as I spied the objects I've longed over. Balanced so precariously, it felt like a single breath might tip them. A fierce hunger to capture the alien-like mushroom sets in motion. And just past this formation, I'm utterly bewildered... It's the Alien Throne carved by the curious hands of wind, rain, and time.
None of it makes sense. It feels intentionally crafted by another species from another universe. Emotions of realization and gratification numb me.
Mystified, with no desire to leave, we pierce through the last formations of the mesa and out onto the flats, to be met with turbulent, biting sand whirled into our faces and eyes. We didn't speak much, just head down, and the mission of getting to the shelter of the truck.
Something about the place demanded we leave—not of fear, but of estranged reverence.
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Credits:
The State of New Mexico, Navajo Reservation, Mother Nature