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| Squaw Creek and Brooklyn Ruins, AZ | | -
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| | Squaw Creek and Brooklyn Ruins, AZ | | | |
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Squaw Creek and Brooklyn Ruins, AZ
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| Hiking | 8.73 Miles |
590 AEG |
| | Hiking | 8.73 Miles | 7 Hrs 4 Mns | | 1.38 mph |
| 590 ft AEG | 45 Mns Break | | | |
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| Partners |
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[ show ]
| partners | | We'd planned this one back in March, but muddy roads forced a change of plans that day and we explored the Rosalie/Hackberry ruins instead. No issues with road conditions today, and we started near the FR 14/FR 620 intersection and headed south, visiting multiple complexes in the Brooklyn ruins. They're not as overgrown as some of the other sites, and though they seem to get plenty of visitors, there are still some walls in pretty good shape.
We continued south, roughly paralleling the edge of the mesa, and came across a cluster of metates, at least seven obvious grooves and a few more that looked like they were in the early stages of formation. We passed one more small ruin on the way to the large Squaw Creek site and took our time dropping down off the mesa edge where there were breaks in the cliff to explore the many petroglyph panels down there...interesting how the vast majority of the rock art is down below and very little up on the top of the mesa near the ruins.
Around three miles in, Route Scout suffered an error I'd never seen before, and all the saved/downloaded routes disappeared...including the one I was following  . It continued recording, but all the points of interest I'd mapped were gone, so a well-planned hike turned into a little more exploring. But the main Squaw Creek complex is hard to miss, and it's impressive--lots of rooms, lots of pottery, and many tall walls that are pretty well intact. The location right on the mesa edge is impressive, with great views overlooking the creek.
Next up was the red deer petroglyphs, and we had to search based on landmarks since I was now Scouting Routeless. But we lucked out, and my second attempt at zooming in and scanning the cliffs with the DSLR camera paid off, and a splash of red caught my eye--the big deer, then the smaller one behind it. We made our way down, and I scrambled up for a closer look [ youtube video ] . Very cool and unique petroglyphs, and the color is impressively vibrant. The was a bonus third red deer nearby, though it was a little more faded. I explored further south along the cliffs and found a few more nice panels, then we went back up to the mesa to return to our starting point and hike down toward Brooklyn Mine.
On the way back, TboneKathy spotted another cluster of metates, this time nine of them in close proximity. Surprisingly, there were three vehicles near the Brooklyn ruins and six or seven people walking around. From a distance, it looked like one of the kids was hauling off a handful of something...hopefully it wasn't a Perry Mesa looting field trip. We stopped by a few more ruins we'd missed earlier, then hiked down FR 14 toward the mine. Without the route/waypoints, it would've been a lot of aimless searching, so we just hiked down the road a short distance and checked out a small ruin or two.
Then back up the road and we came across a few more small ruins on the way up to check out a hilltop rock outcropping with a few petroglyph panels. As we finished up, it looked like the Bradshaws were getting hit with rain to the northwest. Another fun day in Agua Fria, and we saw all the main highlights despite the RS issue and pulled off another I-17 miracle with no major delays on the way home. After today, we've now visited six of the seven ancient Perry Mesa cities, with just Lousy Canyon remaining. |
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