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| Hiking | 6.50 Miles |
1,129 AEG |
| | Hiking | 6.50 Miles | | | |
| 1,129 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | I wanted a short hike not too far from home to a place I'd never been before and this was what I came up with. I've been a little confused about which ruins are the "official" Cline Creek Ruins because there are two sites near Cline Creek on top of two different hills. I have decided to call them East Cline Creek Ruin and West Cline Creek Ruin. The one I headed for today is the west ruin which is the shorter and least strenuous of the two. The official hike description I believe is for the west ruin although some of the posted triplogs appear to be for the east ruin. Both ruins can be seen on Google Earth. I parked my car by the gate on FR53 where it enters the Tonto National Forest at the north end of 12th St (Phoenix). Although FR53 has evidence of recent use by 4x4 and ATV vehicles it has some very rough rocky sections and today had some mud holes due to the recent rains. It's also hard to determine which of the many jeep and ATV trails is FR53. It is the only "legal" signed road for driving a vehicle in that area.
I followed a jeep/ATV track north east from the gate across flat terrain for 1.5 miles. Giant cholla cactus grows in such profusion and at such equally spaced intervals that it looks like a planted crop. There were views of New River Mesa to the north and Black Mesa (Cave Creek) and Elephant mountain to the east. The view of Elephant Mountain is partially blocked by the other east ruin mountain. I followed the jeep trail with a short off trail wander to the east side of the west ruin hill and then followed it up the side of the hill where it stops about half way to the top. There were some great views of Mexican Poppies blooming in profusion on the south side of the hill. A trail leads to the top of the peak from the end of the jeep trail. There were many crumbled down rock walls outlining ancient habitations on the upper north side of the peak. There appears to be roughly three small benches along the north ridge of the peak where walled huts were built. At the top of the peak there are the remains of some walls around the perimeter which appear to be defensive and also a few walls enclosing what might have been rooms. I paused for lunch at the top of the peak and spent some time scanning the area with binoculars. I could see a number of jeep trails which looked convenient for making a loop out of this hike on my return to the car. There is a collection of pottery sherds on a boulder at the south side of the peak. The usual pottery types but one large piece appeared to have a black on red pattern on the outside surface which is very rare to non-existent just over the hills to the east in Cave Creek Canyon. Maybe these ruins are from a slightly different time period or from a different Hohokum group than the Cave Creek Canyon ruins.
On the return, I hiked down the north side of the peak inspecting the ruins on the three benches and then looked for ruins down near the creek on the north side but didn't see any. I then took the ATV/horse trail around the west side of the peak where I got some close up pictures of Mexican Poppies. The trail led to the jeep trail I had seen from the peak which led me back to my car with a little help from my GPS at several intersections. |
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