Explore FR203 Upr- Billy Lawrence Canyon Photoset • Oregon_Hiker • 2015-03-24 • HikeArizona.COM

Explore FR203 Upr- Billy Lawrence Canyon, AZ

	2015-03-24
	17 by Oregon_Hiker

1 label
1 label

4
2 labels
1 label
1 label
1 label
1
1 label
1 label

page 1 2

Explore FR203 Upr- Billy Lawrence Canyon, AZ

Hiking	1.12 Miles	505 AEG

Hiking	1.12 Miles
	505 ft AEG		12 LBS Pack

Linked

linked

Camp Grasshopper - Sierra Ancha - FR203 Upr #1

Partners

partners

Grasshopper

This was a short hike up Billy Lawrence Canyon from FR203 to check out a possible cliff dwelling site. Because of the shortness of the hike we took our time driving down FR203 from Camp Grasshopper stopping to check out another hike we had planned and talked to a Game & Fish officer who told us about the possible closing of FR203 as a part of the Tonto National Forest "Travel Management Plan" (See Forum for additional info on this).

Our destination was an overhanging cliff a short distance up the Billy Lawrence Cny from FR203. I've been wanting to check out this location since I spotted a possible rock wall under the cliff overhang in a telephoto picture I took last year from the east side of Cherry Creek Canyon. I made an attempt last year but went up the wrong canyon. This time we had a Google Earth planning track to guide us through the brush and pick the best topo approach. We arrived at what appeared to be the cliff but a difficult and semi hazardous traverse across a scree slope was required to get a look at the probable location of the cliff dwelling. I scrambled over to a point where I could get a look - it was not the right location. So we climbed up higher and found a second cliff above the first and there was a cliff dwelling ruin. :y:

The ruin consisted of a single large room with a smaller possibly storage room on one side. The back wall was intact to a height of about 4 ft with adobe mud plaster still in place. Part of the side walls were still standing with adobe mortar still holding the rocks in place. The outer wall and probably the roof and been completely demolished by large rocks which had fallen out of the cliff overhang above. A quick search for surface artifacts was not successful. This was not a spectacular site compared to the major known cliff dwellings in the SA but any cliff dwelling ruins with adobe plaster still intact is a good find. This site is also not mentioned in Haury's 1934 report or Lange's "Echoes in the Canyons ...". Happy with our find we headed back for the Grasshopper Jeep and a bone jarring ride back up FR203 to our camp.

Culture

Culture [ checklist ]

[ checklist ] Salado Habitation

Named place

Named place [ checklist ]

[ checklist ] Billy Lawrence Canyon

_____________________

1 archive

username		X
password		X