Navajo National Monument

The stone-and-mortar villages here were raised by Ancestral Puebloan people in the thirteenth century, farmers who grew corn, beans, and squash on the canyon floors and mesa tops and built their homes into protected alcoves. Betatakin and Keet Seel were occupied for only a few generations before the people moved on, part of a broader migration across the Colorado Plateau.

These builders were not a vanished culture. Their descendants live today among the Hopi and other Pueblo nations, who regard these canyons as ancestral homes tied to clan histories and migration stories. The site now lies within the Navajo Nation as well, so several living peoples hold connection to this ground, and that layered relationship is central to how the monument is understood and cared for.

Betatakin sits in a single enormous alcove, a great curved hollow in the sandstone that shelters the dwelling from sun and storm. From the visitor center overlook you can see it across the canyon, small against the sweep of stone, and a ranger-led hike descends to it for a closer look. The name comes from a Navajo word meaning ledge house.

Keet Seel is larger and far more remote, reached by a long and strenuous backcountry hike that the Park Service limits to protect it. Because it was sealed off and little disturbed for centuries, it survives in extraordinary condition, with original timbers, plaster, and even preserved corncobs. Reaching it is a genuine expedition and one of the great walks in the Southwest.

The monument stands on the Colorado Plateau at high elevation, in a landscape of Navajo sandstone cut by deep, sheer canyons. This is the same rock that forms so many of the region's cliffs and alcoves, laid down as ancient dunes and later carved by water into the shapes seen today. The alcoves that shelter the dwellings formed where seeping water weakened the stone and slabs fell away.

The mesa tops carry a pinyon-juniper woodland, dry and fragrant, with sagebrush flats and scattered ponderosa pine at the higher edges. It is quiet country, big and open, and the drive in across the plateau is part of the experience, a slow approach through the heart of the Navajo Nation.

The woodlands here support mule deer, coyotes, jackrabbits, and a range of birds, from pinyon jays working the trees to ravens and raptors riding the canyon updrafts. In the cool shaded alcoves and along seeps, hanging gardens of ferns and wildflowers cling to the wet sandstone, small pockets of green in the dry country.

Late spring through early fall is the season for the guided hikes, with warm days and cool nights at elevation. Summer afternoons can bring monsoon thunderstorms, so hikers watch the sky. Winter is cold and often snowy up here, and trails and the road may close, so a winter visit means checking ahead and coming prepared for the plateau chill.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.