Little Colorado River Gorge and Walnut Canyon

One of the places I stopped was at this Little Colorado River Gorge Interpretive Center. There is a donation fee - and lots of Native American art and jewelry sold here as well.  It was certainly worth the stop, and the canyon was nearly as breathtaking as the Grand Canyon itself.

Those green specks at the bottom are large trees.

See the people at the top to get perspective of how deep this canyon is.

The Four Sacred Mountains:

Here is a map of other Interpretive Sites and Monuments worth seeing.

From here,  continued on toward Flagstaff where I planned to stop for a week or so and camp with some van friends. I was shocked to see tons of smoke billowing over the valley as I drove in and my heart sank. I got online and learned that the Forest Service was doing controlled burns to help stop a wildfire in the area.  This changed my plans, as I cannot tolerate smoke with my MCS.

I found a mail lady and asked her if she knew anything about the fires and if she thought Walnut Canyon would be affected, as that was my next stop. She thought I'd be ok there.

I headed further on to Walnut Canyon. When I arrived, I spoke with the Interpretive Center employees, who told me they expected the smoke would reach them by afternoon.  

Bummer.

Super Bummer.

I went ahead and scoped out camping for next trip.

As you drive toward the Interpretive Center, just before you arrive, you will cross a state road that goes in both directions.  You can turn left OR right and camp anywhere off that road.  I found many camp spots but they were full!  Probably people escaping the smoke!  The few that were left were impossible for my Toyota Sienna to access because of very deep ruts in the road. I would have bottomed out had I attempted access. However, if you have higher clearance, you'd probably be ok.  The camp spots ranged from forested to meadows and were quite pretty.  Here is a photo I took of one that I managed to get into. Unfortunately, there was a HUGE pile of trash left by previous campers; sofa parts, boxes, metal, bricks, just all sorts of things. But the meadow itself was very pretty due to the recent rains.

I will definitely be back to camp here!

The lady was right, by the way. When I drove back through 2 days later, this area was inundated with heavy smoke!  

GPS:   35.177753, -111.50106