
Walnut Canyon sits on the southern tip of the Colorado Plateau. The uplift of the plateau helped give water the energy to carve the canyon. Gravity, assisted…

Coconino Sandstone.
The oldest layer of the canyon is 275 million years old. Walnut Canyon started as a desert with sand dunes along a coast. Winds blew…
The oldest layer of the canyon is 275 million years old. Walnut Canyon started as a desert with sand dunes along a coast. Winds blew…

The next major change is known as the "missing time". Between the Coconino Sandstone and Kaikab Limestone is a very small layer of clay. Due to erosion after…

Kaikab Limestone
The last portion of the building story of the canyon comes about when this area was a warm shallow sea. When marine animals and sea sponges…
The last portion of the building story of the canyon comes about when this area was a warm shallow sea. When marine animals and sea sponges…

Alcoves were created by rainwater seeping through the limestone and dissolving softer layer of rock. The wind helped further this erodion. The Ancestral…

As recently as the mid-1200s, families lived, worked and played in Walnut Canyon. Tending crops on the rim, traveling to gather food, and collecting water from…

Walnut Canyon was known and used by people for thousands of years before it became a focal point for a community during the 1100s. Changing natural and social…

Perhaps people living here 300 years ago called this place Wupatupqa (“long canyon"), as i! is known to some of their descendants, the Hopis. It was no doubt…