Next location: westbound eastbound
In the Naatsis’áán (Navajo Mountain) Chapter of the Navajo Nation, we stop at the end of a dirt road, knock on a door, and ask the elderly resident if we can walk across the land southeast a mile or so toward the border. The lady asks if we’re from the State of Utah. Although unsure why Utah would send anyone out to examine her land on the Sunday before Labor Day, I assured her we were not. She waved her hand in assent. We walked through the piñon and juniper scrubland, tracked by ATVs and cattle. Such marks endure in the fragile arid land, given insufficient rainfall or undergrowth to heal the scars of intrusion. We arrive with Navajo Mountain behind us, at the rim of Jackrabbit Canyon, a deep, dry, inhospitable gash in the mesa, no visible evidence of human activity anywhere below. We did not locate a survey monument, but the rim of the canyon, immediately in front of us, was found by Surveyor Carpenter to be located at 181 miles and 33.7 chains from the Nevada line.