Shiprock

This panel is gone: photographed in 1994, it has since been reported missing. Its geology has dated badly. The rock it calls Sa-bit-tai-e, Tsé Bitʼaʼí in the current spelling, is a volcanic neck of breccia and minette that solidified about 27 million years ago, not in the Pliocene, and it rises about 1,583 feet above the plain. A Sierra Club party made the first recorded climb in 1939, the first in the country protected by expansion bolts. The Navajo Nation banned climbing on it, and on all its spires, in 1970.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Marker Shiprock This huge volcanic neck was formed in Pliocene times, over 3,000,000 years ago. It rises 1700 feet above the sur- rounding plain and is famed in the leg ends of the Navajo as "Sa-bit-tai-e" (the rock with the wings). They hold that it was the great bird that brought them from the north.

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Hogback — 12 mi
• Beclabito Dome — 16 mi
• Four Corners Monument & Marker — 23 mi
• Farmington — 25 mi