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| Hiking | 13.27 Miles |
1,478 AEG |
| | Hiking | 13.27 Miles | 7 Hrs 48 Mns | | 2.29 mph |
| 1,478 ft AEG | 2 Hrs Break | | | |
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| partners | | We returned to Agua Fria for the second straight Saturday, this time to check out the Lousy Canyon ruins, the last of the seven cities we hadn't visited. We parked just north of Perry Windmill, and the roads getting back there were in worse shape than I remembered. It had been a few years...I'm not sure if they've actually gotten worse or if I'd just forgotten, but high clearance was absolutely necessary and 4x4 was helpful, especially near New Windmill. Other than rough roads, we had a good start to the day with a herd of 10-20 antelope running across the mesa on the drive in.
We had a few miles of hiking across the mesa before we started seeing any pottery or signs of ancient life, and we scattered a squadron of 10-15 javelina along the way. Near the edge of the mesa overlooking Lousy Canyon, we came across a nice petroglyph panel with a variety of people/animal figures, and we could see the Lousy fort out on the narrow ridge in the canyon. Next stop was the ruins...there were two medium-sized complexes, much smaller than the Squaw Creek ruins we visited last weekend. But the pottery seemed less picked over here, and we found some larger pieces, and TboneKathy found a colorful painted sherd.
On the way to our next stop, we were crossing a shallow drainage, and I looked back and saw a coati quickly approaching TboneKathy. It apparently hadn't noticed her, and she had to make some noise to get its attention before it saw her and circled around to continue on its way...close call. We continued on to an overlook above the confluence of the Agua Fria River and Lousy Canyon, with some nice fall color down below and more views of the Lousy fort.
Then on to one more set of ruins, where we crossed paths with another squadron of 10+ javalina and saw a few more very unique and intricate petroglyphs along the way. We looped back to our starting point by crossing over Joe's Hill. In addition to the "modern" 1958 benchmark up there, there was a "USGS BM 4030" carving in one of the rocks that must've predated the disks.
One our way back, we stopped briefly at the Rattlesnake Ruins and saw two other people there before finishing off the loop with some metates and a few more petroglyphs over the last half mile. Another fun day on Perry Mesa...great wildlife throughout the day, perfect weather, unique petroglyphs, and interesting artifacts and ruins. There are still a few more Agua Fria sites I want to visit, but we've now hit all the big ones. |
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Perry Windmill - Perry Mesa |
1-25% full |
1-25% full |
| |  Some puddles around the trough. The pipe was trickling water into the large tank and there was a sound of flowing water inside. | | | |
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