Picture of the Day – Aspens at Buffalo Pass

I had camped the last couple of days at Canyon de Chelly in the Northeast corner of Arizona. I needed to go over to Farmington, NM to conduct some urgent business. I considered going north on the highway just west of the canyon, then east on another major highway. But a Canyon de Chelly park ranger (of Navajo descent) suggested a different route that would take me through the back roads in the heart of the Navajo nation. She said it would be faster and I would go through some very scenic country.

She was right. It was a beautiful drive with some very interesting rock formations that I will post here someday. The road took me along Indian Route 13 and over Buffalo Pass, a lesser traveled road very near the New Mexico border. The road consists of many switchbacks as you climb up to the pass at an elevation around 10,000 feet. As you can see from the photo, there is some snow on the ground up that high and I don’t think it was fresh.

I ran into this small grove of Aspens near the top and stopped to take this photo. It was early November, so the trees were bare, having shed their autumn leaves a couple of weeks earlier. Still it was a beautiful sight on this crystal clear day.

After going over the pass, the road drops quickly down to flat desert plains on the Arizona/New Mexico border. An interesting and wonderful drive, to say the least.