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| Hiking | 5.70 Miles |
1,950 AEG |
| | Hiking | 5.70 Miles | | | |
| 1,950 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Grasshopper and I explored this area north of McFadden Horse Mountain in the Sierra Ancha 3 weeks ago focusing on Elephant Rock Arch. We had some clues indicating there was a fairly substantial Indian ruin hidden somewhere in the thick forest not far from the arch but only found a small set of ruins on that day. I decided to return to this area for a 3 day camping trip and more thoroughly search the area. My son-in-law, Lloyd, joined me for the last two days. I set up camp just off HW288 near the turn off to the McFadden Peak Lookout.
This triplog covers the first day when I focused on finding the elusive ruins. Finding the ruins in the thick forest could be almost as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack. I knew the best chance of finding it would be to pull together all our clues and do some searching on Google Earth for likely locations. This effort narrowed down the area of search to the level top of a small hill on the mesa on the north side of the arch. I got an early start from camp that morning and started east through the forest. It's amazing how quickly you can get off course in thick forest if you don't keep your nose glued to either a GPS or a compass. My path crossed a flat bench top where I decided to spend some time searching before proceeding on to the targeted search area. That search was not productive.
After crossing a deep ravine I climbed to the hilltop location and immediately spotted a long crumbled down ruin wall. This wall was part of a rectangular walled enclosure about 50 x 40 feet in size. The ruin site was covered by a thick growth of manzanita as well as fir, pine and oak trees. Elephant Rock with its fortress like ruins on top could be seen south of the site looking down on these ruins. The total ruin area, I'll call it a compound, was only about 140 ft by 130 ft in size entirely surrounded by walls. It was remarkable in the remaining height of some of the enclosure walls. On the downhill side of the compound enclosure were massive retaining walls about 3-4 ft thick and holding back earth as much as 5 ft high. Many of the rocks, flat slabs of sandstone, were quite large probably requiring 2 to 3 people to lift them in place. There were so many of these sandstone slabs that it is difficult to believe the rocks all came from this hill top location. The nearest location I saw for this quantity of that type of rock was in the bottom of the ravine. Could the Indians have carried all these rocks up the steep side of the ravine?
Lloyd and I returned to the ruin the next day on the way to explore other areas and found some pottery sherds. Most had a rust colored textured outer surface - different than the plain smooth surfaced sherds I'm used to seeing at ruins in the Cave Creek area north of Phoenix.
I returned to camp that afternoon in time to enjoy an hour sitting in the warm sun, shielded from a cold breeze by the massive trunk of a giant alligator juniper, and contemplating the day's find while sipping a cold beverage. Although not all that significant as ruins go, it's always rewarding to find one that is not well known and seldom visited. |
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