Many surprises shelter below the rims of Cedar Mesa canyons. Water sources are especially magical for their life-giving qualities.

On Cedar Mesa, natural rock walls, floors and ceilings, provide shelter, and are an integral part of canyon living. Images pecked in stone tell stories, address spirits, map routes, and mark people passing. Painted pictographs abound; many are of hands pressed to stone. Indentations in the rock might be painstakingly tooled moki steps, sharpening marks, or hollows for grinding corn.

The alcoves reveal many scales of construction, from remnants of crumbling granaries, to fortified structures that are almost palatial.

Flowers of the desert provide alluring colors and tantalizing textures. They might be the beginnings of edible fruit like prickly pears, or provide medicinal qualities.

Stone-walled structures in seemingly inaccessible places blend lizard-like into the towering cliffs. Where do man-made impressions end, and natural surfaces resume? In some places, the two sing together as one.

The sun sets, the land darkens, and we wonder how many more mysteries are embraced by the canyons below.