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| Hiking | 5.29 Miles |
1,318 AEG |
| | Hiking | 5.29 Miles | 4 Hrs 16 Mns | | 1.34 mph |
| 1,318 ft AEG | 19 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | Ken and I had been exchanging PMs on ancient sites around here when it came up that we had both spotted a fort or lookout at a very cool "eagle nest" location between Perry Mesa and Seven Springs Rd. It would be a hard place to get to unless you had a jeep and the road heading that way was passable. Turns out Ken has a jeep and was game to give it a try so off we went.
The road had it's white knuckle moments (for driver and passenger) but after 7 miles and about 75min we got close enough to start walking. Beautiful area at about 5000ft elevation and the high point we were heading to looked very cool.
We wanted to do this more or less as a ridge walk so we stayed high and went over an intermediate high point. That one cliffed out so we retreated and did an awkward traverse beneath the cliff band. Although the flora was not terribly thick we made good use of deer trails all day and we saw several deer.
As we got nearer the lookout location we started finding pottery pieces. The fort itself was difficult to approach - scrambling required - well defended still to this day. The top of the "eagle's nest" was covered with well preserved (though low) walls outlining several different rooms. This was not just a lookout - pottery pieces and a metate indicates that at least some people lived there. From this location there were commanding views in several directions including a number of known large ancient habitation sites. If the "Verde Confederacy" line-of-sight early warning system theory is correct, this was probably an important link.
BTW archaeologists give this fort a different name than the one we use here, but we try to avoid a google listing since none exists at present. |
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