Ride in the red canyons
Chee horse ride celebrates family, spirituality
ABOVE: A group of horseback riders rides through a small canyon near Navajo, NM Thursday, August 7. More than twenty riders are participating in a four-day ride that left Tohatchi Thursday morning and finishes in Flutit Rock. BELOW: [photos by Cable Hoover / Independent]

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

NAVAJO, N.M. — What started as a small family outing in 1991 has now grown to one of five horse rides per summer for Navajo Nation Council Delegate Leonard Chee, his family, and members of the Church of the Nazarene across Navajo.

Wednesday evening, 23 riders and their families gathered across the highway from the Chevron station in Tohatchi and Thursday morning left out across the Chuska Mountain range for the Asaayi Lake/Bowl Canyon area.

It was a wet beginning.

“We got poured on,” said Taylor Long, 9, of Leupp. But the kids in the group made the best of it, turning a large rubber tub into an imaginary boat to float around in.

Birthday girls Jeanine Jensen, who turned 18 Friday, and Celeste Paddock, who turned 17 Saturday, celebrated by helping prepare the food and setting up camp for the riders.

“Last night was fun,” Jensen said Thursday evening from their camp near Red Lake, where another storm hung in the air.

“It rained a whole lot and we kind of got stuck in a big puddle. At first we had to move everything to a dry spot and then, all the sudden, we just all started wrestling each other and trying to throw each other in the mud. We were all drenched in mud and water.”

Unlike the annual Council horse ride where delegates hear about politics and concerns from their constituents, this ride is “all about family and taking time off from everything,” said Chee, who represents Birdsprings/Leupp/Tolani Lake.

“We do a lot of sightseeing and try to hit different places every year. We all pitch in and pay for the meals.” He also sponsors a Labor Day weekend ride from his ranch in Leupp to Flagstaff.

“We had about 227 riders last year,” he said.

“The unique thing about our group is we have maybe three ministers that ride with us. They provide Christian counseling, Christian support, and we invite the neighbors. In the evenings we come together and it’s kind of a sharing-type deal. If the youngsters need support, or the grandparents, we provide it.”

The ride is co-coordinated by the Rev. Johnny Nells, administrator/superintendent for the Church of the Nazarene in Dilkon. Nells has 35 churches in New Mexico, Arizona and California under his jurisdiction.

Nells said they focus on family togetherness before the youth go back to school.

“We try to give them an emphasis on family unity, and at the same time, we speak to them on the trail about issues they may be dealing with. Some of the young men are in the work force with uncertainty about employment and stuff like that.

“We encourage them along the way and tell them to be strong in their faith and as they endeavor to look into the future, to build unity and harmony within their families. It gives them a chance to bounce off their concerns to us as ministers, as elders and leaders. Otherwise, they won’t open up,” he said.

“There’s nothing like enjoying nature and the beauty. We pass by these places so fast in vehicles that we don’t take time to absorb everything that’s beautiful around us.”

J.J. Chee, 8, of Kingman and Taylor were the youngest, and according to adults, the “most amazing” riders. The kids just enjoy riding, they said, as well as the scenery.

“We saw a mountain goat,” Taylor said.
Phyllis Slowtalker, 77, Delegate Chee’s mother, said she used to ride horses as a child. “It’s a lot of fun.”

Now, her favorite part about the ride is “when we come together in the evening and the Word of God is shared with everybody that comes.”

One thing Delegate Chee has observed on the rides that he has difficulty explaining to the youngsters is the trash that litters Navajoland.

“We have one of the most beautiful places. From like Tohatchi, within an hour’s horse ride you can go from the desert to the standing ponderosas, and you can see forever — just beautiful scenery.

“But all the illegal dumping that’s happening into the canyons and into the beautiful creek that was there — tires, old refrigerators, furniture — these young kids, they say, ‘Hey uncle, we talk about taking care of the land and stuff like that — but why do people do this?’

“We blame a lot of stuff on young people and children, you know, they don’t listen to us, they’re all out of it — but what about us adults? We should be the ones to clean up and teach our kids not to be doing it, to take care of Mother Earth because it takes care of us.

“I wish we could really do an awareness to where we could prevent that. It’s the sad part of our ride, in my opinion. We say, ‘Navajo, walk in beauty,’ and we should walk in beauty, but we can’t do that with all the trash. We need to clean it up.”