First of all, before you drive through the land or hike it or explore it, pick yourself up a permit from the Navajo Nation. These ruins on the Navajo Land required some extensive research and pouring over maps and images but… my goodness they’re also my second favorite Ancestral Puebloan ruins I’ve ever explored. [I HAVE BEEN INFORMED THAT VISITING THESE IS ILLEGAL AND PERMISSION IS NOT GRANTED]. They are an absolutely amazing delight. When I saw them after my wife and I hiked down a sheer cliffside, over some sand dunes, and through a barbed-wire fence my face lit up like it was Christmas morning when I was kid. The ground was strewn with countless, I mean countless, thousands, or tens of thousands of pot sherds, broken tools, arrow and ax points, beautiful stones, corn cobs, and so many more artifacts. It was wild… Not to mention you could see Monument Valley from the site!

While these ruins aren’t the works of the Navajo’s ancestors, they are still on their land and it’s important to be respectful when approaching them and exploring them. [I HAVE BEEN INFORMED THAT VISITING THESE IS ILLEGAL AND PERMISSION IS NOT GRANTED]. And as always, leave no trace and take no thing. If you pick up a potsherd to examine it (you should) make sure you drop it back where you found it. It may be very tempting to take a piece of pottery since there are so freakin’ many but if everyone took a piece when they visited, there would be no more pieces for anyone to see. The Indians have had enough taken from them already.