Then and now
Arrival
The cliff dwellings were already ruins when the people of the canyons drew the Spanish arrival on the walls in the 1500s. Spanish horses were larger than Navajo ponies, and a priest always accompanied the troops. Conquerors, it seems, needed to administer last rites frequently.
Today
Horses graze in the cottonwoods and ramble through the river bottom providing scale and movement to a timeless scene.
