Leslie and David's Wanderings: 4 October 2021 Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot NMs

Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot are the last two National Park Service national monuments in the area. There is a BLM run NM close to Phoenix, called Agua Fria, but as typical of BLM, it is not developed and from what we could find from our research, just not a lot to see or do, so we decided to skip it. Montezuma Castle NM is actually composed of two units. Both units are just minutes from I-17.

Montezuma Well is north of the main monument and is a sink hole that has water welling up from under ground. There are some cliff dwellings built into the walls of the sinkhole. Over 1 million gallons a day move through the well. There are some underground tunnels that carry the excess water out of the well to a nearby creek. Near the exit, there were inscriptions by tourists on the rock dating back to the 1890s. The water has heavy amounts of arsenic and carbon dioxide which could have proven deadly to the inhabitants. After walking the Rim Trail (1.2 miles, 102 feet of elevation gain, 595 calories burned), we headed to the main site. After checking in at the visitor center and getting our passport stamp, we walked the only trail down to the pueblo ruins. The majority of the pueblo rooms are cliff dwellings built into the tall cliff overlooking the Verde Valley. The ruins used to be open to the public, but were closed to prevent further damage in 1951 after the interstate was built. The tallest and largest structure is four stories tall. It has been restored multiple times. The lower rooms have been left in their natural state but stabilized by the park service. It is interesting how the park service has changed its policies over the years from restoring the pueblo ruins to their previous glory to now leaving them in their natural state but stabilizes them to prevent further erosion. After visiting the ruins, we headed over to Cottonwood AZ.

In Cottonwood, we stopped and ate lunch before going to the Tuzigoot NM. Tuzigoot Pueblo sits on a spit of land overlooking the river. At one point, it had almost a hundred rooms. There is a paved trail up to and through the ruins. After checking in at the visitor center, getting our passport stamp, and exploring the visitor center exhibits (we wondered why they were open when the visitor center exhibits were closed at the other NM), we hiked the short (0.5 mile) trail through the pueblo. By this point we are pueblo ruin exhausted after having seen them in various forms all year long. Rather than take the same route home, we headed through the former mining town of Jerome (now a major tourist attraction) and through the pass to Prescott Valley. We headed north in Prescott valley and turned off on a a National Forest road which took us into the mountains south of Williams. The road was paved most of the way and the portion that was dirt was in reasonably good shape. More storms were coming in from the west, so we hurried to get through the dirt portion of the road before the storms caught up with us. It was a pretty drive and well worth the effort. We saw some deer along side the road and were surprised how many campers were in the NF in the middle of the week. The road drops down into the historic section of Williams.