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| | Cavness Spring Pueblo, AZ | | | |
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Cavness Spring Pueblo, AZ
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| Hiking | 3.70 Miles |
1,050 AEG |
| | Hiking | 3.70 Miles | 5 Hrs 16 Mns | | 0.70 mph |
| 1,050 ft AEG | | | | |
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| partners | | Decided it was that time of year to start hiking in search of ancient rock piles in the desert foothills northeast of Phoenix. So I put together a plan with FOTG and Katie to check out a possible hilltop ruin location my investigations had recently revealed on Google Earth about 13 miles north of Seven Springs. The hiking distance is at the limits of my capabilities for a day hike but driving in on a potentially rough 4WD track could reduce the walking distance by about 5.6 miles and the AEG by 660 ft. The unknown was the drivability of that road. So I went there the day before to check it out and found the road OK for high clearance 4WD. I was surprised to find a faint cell phone signal at this new trailhead enabling me to camp there overnight after texting FOTG along with Katie and their 3 dogs to meet me there in the morning.
We would now have an estimated 3.8 mile hike providing plenty of time to investigate the ruins, assuming there were some there. The shorter hike would also mean my old friend and hiking comrade, Blanco, who is starting to slow down with age, would be able to join us. He's always happy to see me and always comes back to find me when FOTG leaves me too far behind. I had a pleasant afternoon the day before their arrival exploring along an old mining road then relaxing in camp reading a book in complete solitude while occasionally checking out the distant views. Oh, and I also found an Indian ruin with the remains of several rooms hidden in the thicket across the road from camp.
The next morning FOTG and crew showed up shortly after 8:00am. We were soon on the trail, more like no trail at all, with FOTG doing the path finding. The hillsides in this area have scattered thickets of acacia catclaw which tend to make bushwhacking quite unpleasant, especially for FOTG and Katie's dogs. So FOTG was making an effort to clear a path at least big enough for the dogs with his long handled pruning loppers. After about 0.9 miles the brush got so thick that we started rock hopping down a dry creek bed until we reached a point where we could start up the hillside towards the ruin location. Some path finding was required by the intrepid crew of FOTG, Katie, Blanco, Dot and Quincy to find a route through the maze of juniper trees and bushes. But our spirits were raised considerably when Katie and FOTG started finding scattered pottery sherds on our way up the hill a quarter mile before we would reach the hoped for location of the ruins.
The top of the hill was flat with tall golden grass, scattered junipers and a variety of cactus. Shortly after starting across this flat area we saw a massive wall of tumbled down rocks about 3 ft high spanning the width of the hilltop. This was once a defensive wall and about 25 yds beyond it was a cluster of rooms with adjoining massive rock walls, also partially tumbled down. This cluster was in the approximate shape of a triangle with two sides of the triangle along the southwest and northeast cliff lined edges of the hilltop and the third side paralleling the defensive wall across the middle of the hilltop. These sides were approximately 106 x 90 x 60 yards long. The area between the defensive wall and the rooms was littered with pottery sherds with their orange smooth sides easy to identify laying on the surface of the darker natural rock and soil. We would find numerous broken metates and manos. This ruin, though apparently seldom visited, has been extensively picked over by pot hunters who have dug out the 600-700 years of accumulated debris inside the rooms looking for loot but also making the entire height of the inside surface of the walls visible. Many of these rooms appear to have had ceilings 7-8 feet high. Perhaps the building height was a defensive measure since entry to most rooms was probably through openings in the roof - Pull up the outside ladders and it would slow down invaders. Or, maybe as FOTG suggested, the high air space inside the rooms reduced exposure to smoke from cooking and heating fires inside the rooms.
After spending over an hour exploring the ruins we started down the hillside taking a steeper, shorter route down to the creek bed where FOTG knew he could find water for the dogs. We enjoyed a short break by clear pools of water, then started rock hopping up the stream bed to connect with the route back to our parked vehicles. It had been a most enjoyable and rewarding day, as it always is, when I hike with this pair of outdoor enthusiasts and their dogs. |
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