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| Hiking | 6.20 Miles |
1,700 AEG |
| | Hiking | 6.20 Miles | 4 Hrs 21 Mns | | 1.43 mph |
| 1,700 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | I was skimming a 100+ yo paper by J.W. Fewkes (the guy who supervised Mesa Verde and Casa Grande excavations) and noticed his study of a large fort on the upper Verde River near the Granite Creek intersection. A few minutes with that wonderful invention by J.Bartels called Route Manager and I could see it in the satellite view plain as day.
A few more minutes with RM and it's "find" feature showed me the only previous HAZ post in this vicinity was by SSK44. He gave driving directions and mentioned finding pottery sherds, So I was now convinced: I sketched a route (again in RM) which would take me to several other high points along the way.
A bit rainy and muddy and I was surprised to see 7 or 8 cars at the end of the road - turned out boy scouts were camping down near the river. I had no problem wading the river and the walking on the other side was pretty good. Unfortunately I didn't see any cultural signs on the intermediate hilltops.
As I got near the fort I was very surprised how massive and intimidating the defensive wall looked...I didn't expect that. There were two ways in: the very right side was partially collapsed and there was an entrance slot on the left. There were a few collapsed rooms on the inside, but I only saw about a dozen scattered (plain) pottery pieces, no metates, no glyphs. Like the forts I'm familiar with further south, it's clear people didn't live here. Still an impressive place. |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
