• Elevation: 7,177 feet (2,188 meters)
• Prominence: 1,583 feet (482 meters)
• Location: Navajo Nation, San Juan County, New Mexico.
• Coordinates: 36.6875 N / -108.83639 W
• First Ascent: First ascent in 1939 by David Brower, Raffi Bedayn, Bestor Robinson, and John Dyer.
Fast Facts:
Shiprock is a dramatic 7,177-foot-high (2,188-meter) rock mountain located in northwestern New Mexico about 20 miles southwest of the town of Shiprock. Shiprock is on Navajo Nation land. The Navajo Nation is a self-governing territory of 27,425 square miles in northwestern New Mexico, northeastern Arizona, and southeastern Utah. The formation, a volcanic plug, rises 1,600 feet above a barren desert plain south of the San Juan River.
Shiprock's Navajo Name
Shiprock is called Tsé Bitʼaʼí in Navajo, which means "rock with wings" or simply "winged rock." The formation figures prominently in Navajo Indian mythology as a giant bird that carried the Navajo from the cold northlands to the Four Corners region. Shiprock, when viewed from certain angles, resembles a large sitting bird with folded wings; the north and south summits are the tops of the wings.
Shiprock's Name
The formation was originally called The Needles by explorer Captain J. F. McComb in 1986 for its uppermost pointed pinnacle. The name, however, didn't stick since it was also called Shiprock, Shiprock Peak, and Ship Rock, which is its name on a map from the 1870s, because of its resemblance to 19th-century clipper ships. The town nearest to the rock mountain is named Shiprock.
The Legend of Shiprock
Shiprock is a sacred mountain to the Navajo people that figures prominently in Navajo mythology. The primary legend tells how a great bird carried the ancestral Navajos from the far north to their current homeland in the American Southwest. The ancient Navajos were fleeing from another tribe so shamans prayed for deliverance. The ground beneath the Navajos became a huge bird that transported