Next westbound: Navajo Mountain   Next eastbound: Paiute Mesa

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, marked by ATVs and cattle. Such tracks 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, an inhospitable dry gash in the mesa, no visible evidence of human activity anywhere below. The photograph, facing east, was made at N 370 0′ 45″ W 1100 37′ 26.6″.  We did not locate a survey monument but were somewhere near mile 182. Below: scroll left and right.

Above: fixed version.