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| Hiking | 5.60 Miles |
2,053 AEG |
| | Hiking | 5.60 Miles | 5 Hrs 28 Mns | | 1.31 mph |
| 2,053 ft AEG | 1 Hour 11 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | The archaeologist David Wilcox has extensively studied Perry Mesa and the surrounding areas and he's mainly responsible for a couple of interesting theories like 1) the Pueblo's on PM were arranged around the edges in a pattern which made it, essentially, a fortress, and 2) there was a confederacy of peoples in Central AZ which communicated by a line-of-sight network of hilltop lookouts.
Some of the later data he used to make the "line-of-sight" arguments followed from a collaboration with Joe Vogel, a retired guy with an airplane. The airplane was a way to find previously unknown sites. Anyway one of the examples they tend to cite was the discovery of the Rosalie Lookout, which (roughly) overlooks Perry Mesa. (See Joe Vogel describe the discovery at 4:35 https://youtube.com ... XM78 and see the intro by Wilcox at 8:45 https://youtube.com ... F2kw).
So I thought it would be worthwhile to see if I could find Rosalie Lookout. I could start to guess the general area (Rosalie Mine and several Rosalie Ruins are on the east side of PM) and after a little more thinking I put together a loop which I thought would have a good chance of finding it.
The hike involved getting on to the high ridges east of Perry Mesa. Some of this was steep and choked with brush but OKish. I ran across a small circular ruin at an intermediate step...no pottery, probably a small Lookout too. I got to the top of the ridge and followed it along to the highpoint where I expected to find RL, and there it was. It looked to be a typical fort/lookout for the area in that it's a simple perimeter wall - no other habitation signs. The walls certainly would slow down any intruders and possibly also kept the nearby summit inaccessible to others. Presumably people spent much less time there than at habitation sites which tend to have walls, but also pottery, petroglyphs, and grinding areas.
The site was very clean...probably it's been visited very few times.
I had some camera drama on the hike. I was trying out a new camera (Sony WX350) which I do not like - I couldn't see anything on the display. Unlike my current Canon S95, it does not play nicely with my polarized sunglasses. I want the new camera to combine small size and more zoom. The superzoom I got recently is too big and heavy for my liking. Anyway I brought the superzoom along for comparison and when I stopped to get it out of my pack, I found the zipper had opened and the camera was gone. My planned loop turned into a lollipop - and I did find it going back. Camera drama, yuck. |
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Route Editor
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