New Years 2013: Ruins in Agua Fria National Monument

I almost uploaded the Google Earth picture of our route, then checked the Agua Fria National Monument website.  Turns out that this is not one of the ruins whose location they want publicized.  So, you'll have to explore on your own.  It is interesting, though--if one magnifies Google Earth enough, one can see the dim outlines of rooms, along with some apparent terrace outlines on adjacent slopes.  This ruin stands on a hillock in a river canyon, protected by steep slopes on all four sides.  Only one side is relatively easily accessible.

Supposedly, the inhabitants had contact with the Ancestral Puebloans and the Verde River people (Salado), according to the Agua Fria website.  Supposedly one can see pottery from these neighboring groups, but the potsherds we found thick on the ground at this site were all undecorated everyday ware.

This was approximately a seven-mile round trip from the Badger Springs parking area along I-17.  It was a great day:  hiking with friends (all of whom had been to this site before) and Chris, and Ranger the dog, who had a strenuous day of it, since we bushwacked through a canyon floor on part of the way back.  However, he did find a nice deer leg with some hair still on it (yum/yuck) that he carried for about a mile before dropping it.  (Thank goodness he did; I wouldn't have wanted it in the car.)

Besides the potsherds, we found a number of petroglyphs.  At least one might have been made later (the interesting shape with the cross inside [below]), but petroglyphs are ubiquitous on  Perry Mesa.  The weather was perfect Arizona winter:  maybe 45 to 50 degrees most of the day, but dropping quickly as the sun went down. We had to cut short our post-hike beverages and snacks because of the cold.

I leave you with a picture of one of the rock walls that are all that are left of the pueblo, which looked to have about 20 rooms.  From my observation, the massed room block walls (field stone stabilized with mud]
(see http://www.arizonaruins.com/afnm/main_afnm.html) were erected over excavations as well, making this a sort of pit house arrangement like Mesa Verde in Colorado.