Navajo Tours USA Highlights The Natural And Spiritual Wonders Of The Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness
By Jennifer C. Olson for New Mexico Magazine and Photos by Gabriella Marks
The wind blows my tour guide’s long hair out of his face as we walk. Gilbert Tsinnajinnie’s dark curls fly toward the wide brim of his hat, which is tan and banded with white and red like the rock formations surrounding us. The sun sinks behind a crumbling sandstone mesa, highlighting pale, weather-worn hoodoos with rivers of burgundy and streaks of black against a pink sky.
“This land is traditionally held for ceremonial purposes,” the Diné guide told me as we ventured into the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness a few hours earlier. I can see why his people—or anyone—would set aside this landscape for the most reverent and awesome of occasions while going about daily life elsewhere. Practically, higher ground offers more fertile soil and life-giving springs, Tsinnajinnie says. Mystically, Bisti puts nature’s power on display and provides a humility-inciting perspective of man’s place in geologic time. Evidence of ages past is continually revealed by the same wind blowing in our faces and the rain that falls in the San Juan Basin, which slopes from the Continental Divide to these lowlands.
The name Bisti comes from the Navajo word Bisdi or Bistahí, meaning “sediment place.” De-Na-Zin, or Dééł Naazj, means “where the sandhill cranes are,” says Kialo Winters, owner of Navajo Tours USA. While the language comes close to describing the eroded features of the layered sedimentary rock, it’s nearly impossible to fully express the aesthetic of this region. Visiting with a guide like Tsinnajinnie, who has worked for Navajo Tours USA for six years, might just be the best way to better understand such a magical place."
READ FULL ARTICLE: https://www.newmexicomagazine.org/blog/post/bisti-badlands-navajo-tours-usa/
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