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| | PFNP Jasper Forest Area 2, AZ | | | |
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PFNP Jasper Forest Area 2, AZ
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| Hiking | 9.01 Miles |
896 AEG |
| | Hiking | 9.01 Miles | 7 Hrs 30 Mns | | 1.33 mph |
| 896 ft AEG | 42 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | About a year ago I was walking around in the Petrified Forest and came across a pottery concentration along a mesa bottom. That's always fun - the pottery in these parts has interesting colors and textures - but pottery also suggests a good area to look for a habitation site and maybe petroglyphs.
I went back there about 3 weeks ago for a closer look. That time I found a couple petroglyph panels, but my plan to climb up the mesa above the pottery location (I reasoned the pottery pieces must've washed down the hill) failed because the climb up looked too difficult. I had a plan B to just further explore the edge bottom so I did that instead.
After some more study, this time I went back with another plan. I wanted to expand the petroglyph search at mesa bottom and I drew a different route to the mesa top where I fully expected to find more rock art.
My "mesa bottom" glyph-hunt was successful. Many glyphs found and a few of them were very cool. Looking at the top edge of the mesa from the main petroglyph area I thought maybe I could navigate the steep boulder pile to the top. But this was slow, difficult, going so I backed up and went with my drawn track which scooted along the mesa to an area with smaller rocks.
That route got me near the top but the vertical top-edge needed a mantle move to climb and I'm not in mantling-condition. I was able to place a few precarious rocks to lift me to "elbows on the edge" and I squirmed my way up. Ugly, ugly, and I did not want to do that in reverse.
It was nice on top of the mesa and I walked the whole perimeter and some of the middle. But almost no glyphs! Little sign that anyone wanted to be up there. There were a couple higher mesas I thought I might also try to get up but that looked too hard - vertical cliffs at the top. My perimeter scouting showed only one "better way down" than the way I came up. Luckily it worked.
Finally, as I left the mesa bottom heading back I took a slightly different angle (remember I had approached 3X and left 2X before) which was lucky this time. I found another pottery concentration which led me to an obvious small ruin site. I had been wrong: the pottery I originally found at the mesa bottom didn't originate above but was probably carried there from this slightly lower site, a bit further away from the mesa bottom.
Anyway, useful and fun day. Back to Holbrook Motel6 and another hike tomorrow. |
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