October 29-November 4: Dead Horse Ranch State Park, Cottonwood, Arizona

We’re back!

Yes, we’re back in Arizona after our summer travels (well, the Grand Canyon is in AZ as well, but that somehow felt different), and back at Dead Horse Ranch State Park. 

The drive down (both direction and elevation-wise) from the Grand Canyon was mostly easy, even though I got into an argument with the GPS along the way. I had my route all set in the computer but the first time it recalculated, it decided to go a different, longer route. We had to listen to about 15 miles worth of “Off route - Recalculating” nonsense before it acceded to my wishes.

We left the campground and made our way to US-180/AZ-64 heading south. Where those route split, about 15 miles south of the National Park entrance, the GPS wanted me to continue on AZ-64 south to Williams and then east on I-40 to Flagstaff. Well, US-180 angles southeast directly to Flagstaff, and that’s the way I’d chosen. We saved about 15 miles (yes, that’s almost 3 gallons of diesel fuel!) but did have to do some in-town driving through Flagstaff. That was a small price to pay, according to me.

Once in Flagstaff, it was easy to make our way to I-17’s northern terminus. Heading south, we soon reached that piece of Arizona topography called the “Mongollon Rim”. It’s actually an escarpment, and involves an elevation change of roughly 2,000 feet. In practical terms for us, that means road signs warning of 18 miles of 4-6% grades. The good news for us this time: it’s all down hill when you’re headed southbound.

Once we leveled out, it wasn’t long before we found the exit to YC-30 (Yavapai County Route 30) west through Cornville to Cottonwood. It wasn’t long before we were parked and set up for the next week. We were even treated to a nice sunset on our first night.

We stayed here in 2012, right around the same time of year. It’s a convenient “last stop” before we get back to our winter roost in Peoria. It’s about a two-hour drive from here, so we’ll get home in the late morning with plenty of time to get organized.

The Cottonwood/Cornville/Clarkdale area is right in the heart of the Verde Valley (named for the Verde River), about 2,100 feet higher in elevation than the Valley of the Sun. It’s a touch cooler here, nice at this time of year but much too cold for us sensitive types in the winter.

The last time we visited, we basically used this as a kind of decompression point after spending time in Southern California. This time, I planned to do a little more exploring in the area.

On Friday, we drove up the side of the mountain to the little artsy town of Jerome. While it may be “hip” now, it’s actually a mining town that almost disappeared when the mining industry moved on. We’ve driven through before, several years ago when my brother and spouse, Rick & Annette, visited and we made a day trip to Sedona. We didn’t have time to stop that day but I made a mental note to return at some point.

We can see the little town of Jerome from our spot in Cottonwood. It’s perched about halfway up on the side of the nearest mountain. Although it doesn’t look far, it’s actually about 2,000 feet higher in elevation. The road is pretty steep and has some hairpin curves. Even the parking spots can be tricky!

Hard to believe there is a 500-foot
drop right on the other side of this building!

In addition to quite a few “funky” shops, Jerome is home to several high-end art galleries, a slew of restaurants and bars, and two wine tasting rooms. Can you guess where we ended up?

Can't do a wine tasting without posting a few pictures to Facebook!

Since it was Halloween, we saw quite a few of the “locals” dressed in costume. Our server at the Caduceus tasting room was a good sport. In the small world department, it turns out she’s a transplant (no Zombie pun intended) from Collingswood, New Jersey, just a few miles from where we lived in Berlin. As we were checking out, for fun I asked the staff if they knew what we were dressed as for Halloween. After a few seconds of blank looks, they came up with “Snowbird Retiree Tourists”!

Over the weekend, we had a little cooler weather and quite a bit of wind. That made it a little difficult to enjoy outside activities. By Monday, things calmed down and we were able to do a little more exploring. We actually hit the trifecta of sites associated with ancient tribes in the area. Montezuma Castle National Monument is an adobe pueblo built high up on a rock wall overlooking Beaver Creek. Montezuma Well is a natural basin several miles away that’s fed by underground springs. And Tuzigoot National Monument is a preserved ruin very close to our campground.

"Watch that first step"! 

Montezuma Well is more of a spring-fed lagoon in the middle of the high desert landscape.

Montezuma was never here, but the Spanish expolrers who tramped through here in the 1500s just assumed...

It's hard to see here, but the outlet of the lagoon is just a small crack in the rock wall.

Also a little hard to know from a picture, this Sycamore tree has its roots right at the outlet.
It must be six feet in diameter and grew out on an angle to get sunlight.

The Tuzigoot Ruins are completely different than Montezuma Castle, as they are built on, not into, a hill.

Archeologists have recreated what they believe to be original building techniques. The differences in construction style and, to a lesser extent, building materials is used to identify the timing and sub-culture responsible for the settlement.

Initially, I thought this was a flood plain of the nearby Verde River, but it's actually reclaimed land that was a toxic waste dump for the copper mining industry in Clarkdale off in the distance. It was flattened, covered, and resurfaced in the 1990s.

Back home, we were able to sit outside for a bit and use up the last of our firewood, and enjoy another nice sunset.

On Tuesday, our last day in the area, we decided to take a ride to Sedona. As I often do, I suggested that we take the “scenic route”. I’d read about Schnebly Hill Road a couple of times in off-road articles and in Arizona Highways magazine (an awesome publication, by the way). It’s described as an “easy” 12-mile drive between the outskirts of Sedona and I-17 to the east.

Well, if this road is “easy”, maybe I don’t need to see “difficult”. We (OK, I) decided to drive the road from east to west, so we headed up (literally) I-17 to the Schnebly Hill Road exit. We immediately left the pavement behind and entered Ponderosa Pine forest. The road was rutted and uneven, albeit relatively flat. We were “above the Mongollon Rim” on the Kaibab Plateau, so that was expected. We did well to maintain a pace of 20 MPH, but we weren’t in a hurry.

The scenery was nice enough but got a little boring quickly, so there was pressure to turn around but we pressed on. After about five miles, we turned to the north and were greeted with a nice view of the San Francisco Peaks in the distance. Now, we had just driven past these mountains on the way south from the Grand Canyon and they were snow-free. We could tell that what we felt as chilly and windy weather in Cottonwood had brought the season’s first snow to the mountains of northern Arizona. Here’s looking forward to a snowy and wet winter — for them!

Another mile further on, we came to an abrupt change in the scenery. The vegetation rapidly changed from Ponderosa Pine to Juniper, then thinned out considerably. We soon came up to a vista point turnoff where several other hardy travelers were parked, talking and taking pictures. The vista point is perched right on the edge of “The Rim”, looking down several thousand feet into the Red Rock country surrounding Sedona.

Yes, you can see a trace of the road we'll need to use to get to Sedona across the center of the picture!

All of the folks gathered at the overlook were traveling in the opposite direction as we were; they had driven up from Sedona. One of them asked my how the road was back the way we came. I explained that it wasn’t too bad, but that the scenery was, shall we say, “consistent” once on the Plateau. Everyone told me that the road was much worse between the vista and Sedona. Geri wasn’t sure how that could be possible (she’s not an off-road girl), but they were right.

As soon as we left the vista point, we started downward on a road etched into the side of a vertical cliff. The road surface was pretty rocky itself, and was also littered with rocks and small boulders that had fallen from the cliffs above. Our pace slowed to 10 MPH, and we had several spots where we had to stop and try to figure out which side of the road to use for the “smoothest” ride.

While the road was pretty rugged, the scenery was awesome! This portion of the drive certainly made up for the relatively boring ride through the pines earlier. It seemed like we needed to stop every few yards for another photo opportunity. Most times, I tried to pull off the traveled portion of the road. I was glad that the Rover has an air suspension system that allowed me to gain an additional 3 inches of ground clearance!

We started to encounter vehicles from the Sedona-based “Jeep Tour” companies heading in both directions. Most of the passengers waved but the drivers seemed annoyed with us “interlopers” getting in their way, especially on sections of the road that seemed to only have one good vehicle track. We even saw one couple heading up the hill on a motorcycle. Good for them!

We continued to stop for pictures all the way to the beginning of the paved road as we entered Sedona. It will be interesting to try this drive another time in the morning when the sun is coming from the other direction.

Once in Sedona, we realized that we’d pretty much spent the day doing the drive, so we didn’t really poke around any further. We headed back south on AZ-89A and were soon back in Cottonwood, prepping for tomorrow’s departure and the end of our “summer vacation” for this year!