The San Juan River, named by the San Juan Bautista,
threads its way through Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah to the border of
northern Arizona. Anasazi ruins and rock-art panels dot its sandstone
cliffs and floodplains. The San Juan also plays a significant role in Navajo
mythology, where it is known as Old Age River, One-With-a-Long-Body, or
One-With-a-Wide-Body, and is characterized variously as an old man with
hair of white foam, a snake coiled at the Goosenecks, a flash of lightning,
and a black club of protection. The spectacular deep and incised river
meanders are some of the tightest in the US, with over five miles of river
progressing just one mile in distance.
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