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| Hiking | 14.64 Miles |
2,983 AEG |
| | Hiking | 14.64 Miles | 10 Hrs 21 Mns | | 1.77 mph |
| 2,983 ft AEG | 2 Hrs 5 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | We hiked to Skull Mesa earlier this month, and our goal today was to reach the ruins on the north end. We started at Spur Cross Ranch again, but this time took the 247A/247B shortcut (thank you to @LosDosSloFolks for the tip  ), which takes a more direct approach to the south end of Skull Mesa and cuts ~1.5 miles off the route each way. We ignored the "Area Closed" sign this time, and the trail quickly leaves the county park and is easy to follow until it connects with Cottonwood Trail.
Up on top of the mesa, we took a slightly different route this time as we headed toward the north side, an we ended up coming across a small ruin with quite a few pot sherds, which was a nice surprise [ youtube video ] . We also passed a few random areas with pot sherds scattered around further north on the mesa. After getting within a mile of the main ruins site, I realized I no longer had the DSLR camera that I'd been carrying earlier...I'd stopped briefly somewhere along the mesa to put a sweatshirt on and must have forgotten to pick the camera up again.
As soon as I realized it was missing, I left all my stuff with @TBoneKathy and started running back to the south, retracing our route with the GPS. I ran back about a half mile and didn't find it, then gave up and turned around again, thinking we'd end up wasting the afternoon searching for it. Fortunately, I did end up finding it on my way back, though I ended up running around for an extra mile thanks to that mistake (not included in the mileage here). The GPS really saved us...without that, finding the camera would have been an impossible needle-in-a-haystack search with the lack of distinctive landmarks on the mesa.
That cost us some time, but we got moving again and made our way along the narrow ridge toward the main ruins site. Last time we were in the area, I hadn't noticed that there were also some low walls on the hill just south of saddle below the lookout ruin [ youtube video ] . We made our way around the left side of that hill and over to the main ruins complex. There was an impressive number of rooms along the edge and in the middle of that narrow section of the mesa [ youtube video ] , and a lot of pottery scattered around.
I made the short scramble up to the lookout and was pleasantly surprised by how much was up there--from below, we could only see one main wall, but there were quite a few rooms, and a large portion of the top of the ridge was enclosed by walls, similar to some of the other Hokokam sites in the area.
[ youtube video ]
[ youtube video ]
When I climbed back down to the saddle, we spent a little more time exploring the lower pueblos and found a lot of pottery, including some large, palm-sized pieces. In some areas there were so many pot sherds on the ground that it was almost impossible not to step on them...I hadn't seen concentrations of pottery like that outside of Agua Fria.
It was cool and windy as we returned across the mesa, and we came across a fairly fresh javelina carcass, with quite a bit of fur and most of the teeth still intact. We stopped for lunch at the small ruin we'd found on the way in and explored that site a little more, this time finding even more pottery than we'd first seen, including some larger pieces. I stopped at the overlook on the south end of the mesa before heading down the switchbacks [ youtube video ] , and the clouds really started to gather and get darker as we made our way down. A lot of the peaks off in the distance had been shrouded in low clouds all day, and eventually the clouds ended up enveloping Skull Mesa as well.
Over the last half mile, we had a spectacular show as the sun dropped below the clouds in the west, which not only made for a nice sunset but also lit up the base of Skull Mesa while the top was still in the clouds. It was a great way to finish off the hike, and with this being our final hike of 2021, also a fantastic finish to the year. The ruins exceeded expectations, we saw a few other interesting things we'd hadn't expected, and the clouds and sunset created a unique atmosphere...and finding the camera without wasting the whole afternoon was a nice bonus . |
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got a late start from spur cross which both lots were completely packed, seemed most people were just going to jewel of the creek, my guess is there’s a lot of out of staters. Skull Mesa has been on the list for a while due to its proximity to me and isolation. I got exactly that, didn’t see anyone for the last 4 miles and even then not much. Summitted around noon and made pretty good time coming back. Overall a good day and a nice one to check off the list. And like always, I stopped for Indian village fry bread on my way out 
