Tuzi-who? and Déjà Vu

Tuzigoot is the site of the ruins of a Sinagua Indian village, which was an active village for several hundred years, reaching it’s peak population in about 1300 AD.  When archeologists began to excavate the ruins in the 1930s, they had no name for the project.  A Tonto Apache working on the dig suggested  “Tu Zighoot”, the Apache name for “crooked water” because of the nearby river.  The name was adopted, but was spelled incorrectly and mispronounced, resulting in“Tuzigoot”, which has absolutely no meaning at all.

The village consisted of many attached rooms, each of which housed one family.  The rooms were built with stone and mud walls with a combination of wood timbers, reeds and clay for the ceiling.  Instead of doors, the rooms were entered by climbing ladders and coming in through the roof.
   There are many of these villages in the Verde Valley, all of which were built on top of hills, presumably so that the surrounding flat land that was suitable for farming would not be wasted.
The history of this place is so ancient that archeologists and scientists can only guess at why the population left this area in the 1400s.  There is no current Sinagua population left, so their story did not survive the years.


Jerome



   From Tuzigoot we could see the town of Jerome in the distance and since it was early enough in the day we decided to wander over there.  As we drove up the winding hill towards the town, I realized that we had been here before, although neither of us remembered that we had.  I think we were here in 2002 when we took the kids on a trip to Arizona.



Paul and the Ranger looking down Little Daisy, a 1900 ft deep mine shaft.

 Jerome is an old mining town, still surrounded by mountainous piles of tailings, the byproduct of ore mining.  This is a well known “ghost town” that has a larger population now (600) thanks to tourism.  Paul and I wandered the town, poking our heads into many of the small stores, and ate lunch at restaurant in a building that was built in 1898 and still has the original bar stools.
The town we’re staying in is Cottonwood, about 15 miles or so from Sedona, which is one of the places we’ll be exploring in the next few days.  We knew the weather would be coolish here and we were right.  It's downright chilly and the weather forecast isn't looking any better.  The high on Tuesday is supposed to be in the 30s.

Chiricahua Mountains (2-6-2011)

   Paul and I spent our anniversary hiking in the Chiricahua Mountains, which was home to the Chiricahua Apaches many years ago.  The last time we were here, we hiked a short trail, in 5 inches of new snow.  This time we were luckier- there was no fresh snow on the ground, although about 30% of the trail was snow covered.  It was a test of our "layering" abilities, for sure.  Everyone knows if the temperatures are cold and may vary, you need to layer.  Deciding what to wear for those layers required some thought though.  In the end I wore a short sleeved hiking shirt, a sweatshirt, a hooded sweatshirt, and my Gor-tex windbreaker.  I also had two hats with me (baseball cap and a warm one), and swapped back and forth between them all day.  For the first hour I was really glad I had all those layers on, since the temperatures had barely approached the 40 degree mark.  We both shed and added layers all day long as we moved from sun to shade, snow to bare ground, and wind to calm and every combination of those factors imaginable.

 




Big Balanced rock- 25ft in diameter, weighs 1000 tons

                                                                                                                                                                We took a longer trail this time, hiking the Ed Rigg trail to the Mushroom Trail to get to the Heart of Rocks Trail that has some interesting rock formations.  Once we finished the Heart of Rocks trail, which is a small loop, we had to make a decision about our route back.  We could continue forward, taking the opportunity to see new formations, but that would add 2 miles and some elevation gain to the day; or we could turn back and return the way we came, keeping the day's hike at about 7.5 miles. 

   We decided it was too late in the day to comfortably hike the extra mileage, so we  turned around.  However, we did think it was worth adding a short 1 mile spur to get to see "Inspiration Point".  By that time we were getting tired, so we were hoping it would be worth it.  It was.  The skies were clear enough to see for long distances and the views were awesome.  Total mileage for the day was 8.5 miles.                                         



view from Inspiration Point



              Once we finished the hike, we went home to get ready to go out to dinner.  Willcox doesn't have too many restaurants, but they do have a decent Mexican one.   It was a great day and felt great to get out and get moving again.  Today we head to El Paso for a few days before heading down to the Gulf coast of Texas.

Chiricahua National Monument, Willcox, AZ

Well, a new experience for us today.  We went hiking in the snow.  It wasn't snowing at the time, but there were a few inches on the ground.

Originally we were intending to hike Chiricahua National Monument yesterday, but the weather changed our minds.  Yesterday it rained most of the day, and the wind was whipping at about 30 miles an hour.  Oh. and it was in the 30s.  As anxious as we were to hike, there was no way it was going to happen.  As it turned out, it was kind of nice to decompress for the day.  We drove around Willcox, did a little shopping, and found Stout's Cider Mill.  We had some awesome apple pie, with cinnamon ice cream, then bought another small pie to bring home.  We also rented Star Trek, and now we know why everyone said it was such a good movie!  This morning, though, we realized that we had left on the outdoor stereo speakers by accident.  We apologized to the people next to us.  They laughed- it didn't disturb them, but they did wonder if we were watching TV  outside in the rain.

We were going to leave for Phoenix today, but we really want to see Chiricahua, so we postponed Phoenix for one more day. This area is known for its unusual rock formations. When we got up this morning, it was still in the 30s, so instead of leaving early, we relaxed over breakfast and left at about 8:30 for the 45 minute drive to the park.  Once we got there, we were surprised with the news that the road through the park wasn't open yet because they have to plow it.  Ooops.  We wandered the exhibits at the Visitor Center until we were told it was ok to go.  There are two basic trails through the area of the park that we wanted to see-one is 7.5 miles and the other is 3.5 miles. We didn't feel comfortable sticking to our original plan of doing the 7.5 mile loop, since there were still a lot of clouds around, it was cold, and we didn't know how slippery it would be in the snow. Although we didn't have any real issues, we're glad we kept it to the shorter loop.  The rock formations were amazing, and as we have found with  a lot of the natural beauty we have seen, pictures and descriptions hardly do it justice.

After eating lunch, we decided that it was early enough in the day that we could make the drive over to Fort Bowie (pronounced booee).  It was a little nervewracking for a few minutes on the drive over there.  We went down a long dirt road, and at one point, the mud was so deep and slick that the truck was fishtailing all over the road.  Paul said it was similar to being on ice....you can't go too slow- you have to go the right speed.  Trust me, sliding sideways down the road (in an F350 with dual rear wheels) was quite an experience. 

It was another 3 miles of walking to get to the fort and back, but at least there was no snow on the ground at this elevation. I have to say,  what impressed me wasn't the fort, it was the little information plaques that were along the trail.  They did a great job of describing what it was like here, and what took place in the 1800s. I think what helped me visualize everything was the fact that not much has changed in this area since then. As I looked around me there were no houses, no people, no manmade structures at all, except what was here 100 years ago. The fort was built in the 1800s to protect  the stage coaches and mail carriers as they passed through "Apache Pass", an area inhabited by Apache indians. At that time in history, Cochise was a leader of the Chiricahua Apaches. There was an uneasy civility between the indians and the settlers until Cochise was wrongly accused of stealing and kidnapping.  That accusation resulted in an 11 year war between the Apache and the settlers.

Very little remains of the actual fort, but walking through the dry river bed and along the trail, I could really get a sense of the incredible history of this area.