Montezuma’s Castle National Monument is located about two hours north of Phoenix. Built by the Sinagua people over 800 years ago. Isn’t it stunning! They used to let visitors inside the castle, but it was causing too much damage, so that was discontinued in 1951. The name was given back in the mid 1800’s by explorers that discovered it. They mistakenly assumed that Montezuma’s was connected to the tribe that built it. Also, it is not a castle, but a 20 room building thought to house about 50 people. It was declared a National Monument by President Roosevelt in 1906.
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MONTEZUMA’S WELL
You can see the ancient cliff dwellings along the far wall in the distance.
While walking around the rim of Montezuma’s well, Dave found a trail that lead down. We didn’t know where it went, but we followed it. We were careful about where we stepped because we had been seeing a lot of signs warning about rattle snakes in the area. We didn’t want to mention it and scare the kids but Summer noticed and put two and two together and started to get nervous. So when a cicada jumped and hit her in the arm, she screamed, did a crazy dance, and started to hyperventilate. I wish I would have had a video camera on her at that moment. After she recovered, she walked very close behind us for the rest of the trail. We never did see any snakes. But Summer did get a lot of teasing. She was a good sport about it though.
At the bottom of the trail we found these cave dwellings. We noticed right away that it was much cooler down there than it was in the sun higher up. Notice the blackened ceiling of the cave from the cooking fires 800 years ago. The doorways are built extra small to give more shelter from summer and winter weather.
Another trail brings you to the other side of the well where there is an outlet for the water. Here is where the prehistoric farmers dug a canal to irrigate their crops. The canal is about three feet deep and one mile long.
We stopped to enjoy a moment in the shade before hiking back up to the sun.
This reminds me of Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. Jeff loved seeing the ancient remains there, actually we all did. He was about Summer’s age at the time.