By Matt Jaffe, Calabasas, California
Striated boulders and hoodoos congregate in Blue Canyon. | George Stocking
We’re always being told to live in the moment, but lately I haven’t had an opportunity to do much of anything else. Actions that not so long ago were reflexive and unconscious have, by necessity, become deliberate and measured — every touch of a door handle or press of an ATM keypad the subject of an instantaneous risk analysis.
The present is fraught, while tomorrow seems even more unknowable than when a wise person somewhere articulated, “It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” With the world feeling so small and this moment we’re all living in so stifling, I’m craving landscapes and sky and something ancient. I’m dreaming of Blue Canyon.
A branch of Moenkopi Wash on Hopi Tribe land northeast of Tuba City, Blue Canyon is such a distinctive landscape that it inspired what amounted to a flight of poetry in the otherwise earthbound prose of a 1917 U.S. Geological Survey document titled Geology of the Navajo Country.
“At Blue Canyon,” it reads, “the delicacy of coloring and intricacy of carving in the McElmo formation combine to produce a landscape not exceeded in beauty by any other scenic feature of the Plateau province.” That’s no small tribute, considering that “Plateau province” refers to the Colorado Plateau region, which encompasses the likes of the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly.
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Blue Canyon is a much more intimate place. There, sculpted by erosion, are turrets and towers, hoodoos and arches. Some are capped with dabs of coppery orange, as if they’ve been dipped in paint. Others are banded or crosshatched with a creamy white. There isn’t much blue in Blue Canyon.
Balanced rocks rest like abstract sculpture on plinth-like pedestals of stone, while a few outcroppings have well-defined, tapering domes that resemble the spindle of a toy top. Many formations appear to be melting, as if they’re dissolving back into the earth. This is where Hopi meets Dali.
Until about four years ago, I didn’t know Blue Canyon existed. We were up on the Hopi mesas and heard that a traditional Katsina dance was underway on First Mesa. We drove over from Tsakurshovi, on Second Mesa, then climbed a ladder to a rooftop for the best view of the plaza. The rhythms and movement and color were positively hypnotic until the dancers suddenly took a break and everyone began dispersing.
We were conspicuous as outsiders, and while we waited our turn to go back down the ladder, a guy in mirror sunglasses asked, “Been to Blue Canyon?”
“No, never been.”
“How long you here for?” I told him we were leaving soon. Stepping onto the ladder, he said, “Next time, you should go.” That night, when I looked up pictures of Blue Canyon, I understood why.
In good times, it’s easy to remain complacent and put things off for another day — under the assumption that the days will, in fact, keep coming. But all this living in the moment means I’m a lot less complacent about my tomorrows than I was a couple of months ago. When the time comes — when it’s safe again to travel, when I won’t add to the health risks for the residents of the mesas — I want to see Blue Canyon for myself. To be reminded that “now” is only a moment, but some places last forever.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Visiting Blue Canyon requires an authorized Hopi guide.
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