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| Perry Mesa Wanderings, AZ | |
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| | Perry Mesa Wanderings, AZ | | | |
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Perry Mesa Wanderings, AZ
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| Car Camping | 10.00 Miles |
1,000 AEG |
| | Car Camping | 10.00 Miles | 2 Days | | |
| 1,000 ft AEG | | | | |
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| partners | | I can't seem to get enough of this mesa lately. This time around, Larry joined me for a nice little car camp and overnight trip to the former territorial grounds of the enigmatic Perry Mesa Groups. Although, it should be noted that our first stop of the trip was more within the Perry Mesa proper vs the actual mesa geologically speaking.
The Perry Mesa locale is an archeological wonder in terms of the concentration of ruins, glyphs and signs of prehistoric habitation. I made my first visit to this mesa in 2011, but I was so turned off by the roads, lava rock, goat heads and generally unfavorable dog conditions that I did not make an concerted effort to see any of the ruins again until this past winter. Since then, I have done a bit of a deep dive on this area in terms of its prehistory and the accepted theories on the people and their way of life on the mesa. This past weekend's deep dive took us to the area referred to as the Hackberry Basin Complex/Group in most archeological guides.
There were several satellite or periphery compounds and one large standard style Perry Mesa dwelling on an elevated bench that seemed to be the focal point of the community there. The smaller dwellings were your pretty standard pile of rocks, with a few sections of waist high walls here and there and notable room outlines. The largest structure however, was pretty impressive, with countless room outlines visible, several sections of modest wall still remaining and a lot of doorways intact enough to aid the imagination, as one thought of the original structure. I looked for some glyphs in the cliff bands above the ruins, but had not luck, apart from a random rock that contained a few that I came across on my way to the base of the cliffs. I have a feeling more glyphs are in the area, but I only did a quick cursory check. We then headed to a "mystery" wall that we had found on satellite imagery, the wall proved to be something more contemporary and probably related to cattle or sheep control. The wall itself was pretty mundane, however, the couple of tenths of a mile or so waist tall grass traverse there was pretty lively. We came across four large rattlesnakes during the walk over to the wall. In fact, at one point a rattler had popped off in front of me and two to my side at the same time. As it turns out, the two to my side were mating and quickly went back to their business. The one in the front, may have been the odd snake out and he retreated to a prickly pear. Then not five minutes later, I came across another large rattler in the grass just a few feet ahead of me and I called it. Too dangerous to have dogs running through that grass. It felt like something was in the air so to speak and I did not want to push our luck. We returned via road to where we parked and avoided the tall grass. An obligatory red deer stop rounded out our day and then we returned to camp.
On Sunday we made an effort at getting to some ruins in the Baby Canyon Group, but the off trail proved a little tedious and we settled for a bit of a meh hike to a dry tank and prehistoric "racetrack." The dry tank was about as exciting as a dry tank could be and the racetrack although hard to identify, was kind of intriguing and a bit thought provoking. Interesting to note, there were six dead cows sprinkled in and around the dry tank. The cattle appear to have died somewhat recently. Perhaps they could not find water and expended too much energy committing to the dried up tank. I am not sure if losing six cattle is just part of ranching in these parts, but it seemed a little odd. I do not remember ever coming across that many "recently" dead cattle at one tank.
A great weekend out on the Mesa with Larry and some great weather to go along with it. |
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