Isolated from the rest of Colorado, the San Luis Valley has often been a forgotten place, but for Native American tribes including the Utes, Apache, Navajos, and others it is a source of life, a place where humans and spirit enter and leave this world. Sierra Blanca, or White Mountain, is considered by the Navajos to be one corner of their sacred home. The Navajo, or Dine, call the mountain Sisnaajinii, one of the four sacred peaks in Navajo land. Also called White Shell Mountain, it is the eastern boundary and doorway into Navajo land. In Navajo belief, the first beings, First Man and First Woman, came up from the underworld and placed a grain of sand that made these four mountains, then dressed them in four colors and set them at the edge of Navajo sacred land. The mountain later received the name Mount Blanca from the first Spanish explorers who came to the San Luis Valley. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains were named by Father Francisco Torres, who was mortally injured in an encounter with the Navajo people and, as he lay dying, looked at the crimson light of the setting sun on the mountains and cried out Sangre de Cristo, or Blood of Christ. Dinétah was the homeland of these Athabascan people called the Navajos, and wars between the Utes and other people forced the Navajos to move west. In this high mountain desert, visitors climb 2000 feet and stand over halfway to the top of Sierra Blanca, while Medano Creek disappears into the earth to replenish the giant aquifer flowing beneath the valley.