Wupatki/Sunset Crater and Walnut Canyon

We left Grand Canyon a little on the late side. We had planned to do visit an other park on that day: Wupatki N.P. In fact we were unfortunately a little bit too late when we arrived at Wupatki (just North-East of Flagstaff). The good thing about that late hour was, that the first ruins we saw lit up in an unearthly wonderful warm light. The bad thing was that the visitor center was closed and that we ran out of light in no time. We could barely see the Wupatki ruins at the visitor center en it made no sense to drive up to the Wukoki ruins since it was dark by then. Through Sunset Crater Volcano (which of course we couldn't see either) we went to Flagstaff where we spent the night.
The next morning after one of those wonderful American breakfasts, we went to Walnut Canyon National Monument. We walked there in the footsteps of people who lived at Walnut Canyon more than 700 years ago, and who built their cliff dwellings deep within canyon walls. We saw of course only a small part of the canyon: the so called Island. The Island Trail descends 185 feet (56m) into the canyon providing access to some cliff dwellings. We were exhausted after the 240 steps we had to climb back up.