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| | Black Canyon Auto Tour, AZ | | | |
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Black Canyon Auto Tour, AZ
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| Scenic Drive | 4.50 Miles |
400 AEG |
| | Scenic Drive | 4.50 Miles | 54 Mns | | 5.29 mph |
| 400 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | The forest service has an auto tour set up along the Black Canyon Road and through Black Canyon just south of Heber. The tour is comprised of prehistoric, and historic sites along the Black Canyon Road for approximately 15 miles to its final stop at the Hangman's Trail. The dirt road is of great quality and passable for sedans during dry conditions. All of the sites are signed well, with parking and informational plaques.
My first stop of the day was an impressive pictograph site right off the road. A number two labels the site from the road and there is a trailhead area with an information plaque. The glyphs were pretty thought provoking and unique for what I usually come across. I explored an additional mile in the area and found some other pictographs near by.
While traveling to the second spot I explored some promising cliff bands and found an overhang ruin and more glyphs.
Our second stop of the day was the rock shelter. An old road and good trail takes you to the rock shelter. It is signed well and there is formal trailhead for parking.
There were some people at the old Mormon Homestead area so I pushed on to the Baca homestead and Baca family graveyard. The Baca's had seven daughters and it is said there homestead was a popular stop among cowboys in the area.
I went to Black Canyon Lake after the Baca Homestead, however, it was a little bit too busy for my liking, and I we never got out of the car.
The final stop of the day for us was the grave of three young men who were lynched during the Pleasant Valley War. There is a lot of information about the lynching online and most of it makes for some pretty good reads. In a morbid coincidence, the dates on of Aug. 4th on all three tombstones happens to be my birthday. Although, according to historical records the dates to not match the actual day of the lynchings and one of the men's body actually lies in another grave nearby.
I took the Young Road home and finally caught the museum in Pleasant Valley open. Its a small museum, but it has some absolutely spectacular prehistoric artifacts that had been recovered from the general area.
An excellent day of backroads driving with the pups. The Black Canyon auto tour is a little bit of a gem and probably worthy of a description on here when I get some time. I am happy to have run across it while doing some research last week. If possible, I would avoid it on weekends. Even on the shoulder weekend before Memorial, I found the road to be pretty congested. However, I only ran across one group in all of my stops. |
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