Everyone that I know from Arizona told me I should visit Jerome, so today I did the short drive to explore Jerome State Historic Park. Situated in a canyon with the town on the steep hillside it makes quite a first impression as you get closer.
A working mine producing copper, gold and silver from the late 1800’s up until its closure in 1953. Now only 444 people call the town home earning it “ghost town” status. The founder Jimmy Douglas’ mansion is now the museum and houses interesting artifacts about the mining operations and some pretty cool samples of the ores mined here.
A fun day trip only about 30 minutes from my campsite in Cottonwood. You can view the pictures from my visit in this album.
Next up something a little more iconic, having only seen the Grand Canyon from the air when I took a sightseeing flight from Las Vegas several years ago, I was excited to finally see it from the ground. The North rim is still closed this early in the season. I was able to make a loop route by entering the East entrance and then returning out the South entrance, a perfect day trip!
Hitting the road around 9am should put me at the Canyon around midday and the weather was perfect leaving Cottonwood, it was clear and sunny and predicted to be in the mid to upper 50’s for the day. The drive north was pretty uneventful as the elevation increases the desert gets even more barren until even the mesquite and scrub brush disappears.
I arrived at the South rim and noticed that the temperature had dropped to 19 degrees! With a brisk breeze it was COLD 🥶🥶.
The overlook provided some great views and I quickly snapped some shots before seeking refuge in the gift shop.
After lingering in the gift shop long enough to thaw a bit I make the short walk back to the truck once again realizing that I am not cut out for cold weather, the 200 yard walk felt like a survival challenge in the cold thin air. Mountain climbing is not in my future…
Determined to make the most of the opportunity, I toured the Village area and stopped at all the overlooks for photos on my way back out the South entrance for the ride back to camp. You can see all the photos in this album.
On my way back to camp I saw the roadside signs for Montezuma’s castle and made the trip the next day to check it out. A set of well preserved cliff dwellings which were built and used by the Sinagua people, a pre-Columbian culture closely related to the Hohokam and other indigenous peoples of the southwestern United States, between approximately AD 1100 and 1425. This site has no connection to the Aztecs, but at the time of the parks creation in 1906 the public was fascinated by the Aztec culture and thus the name.
This cliff dwelling is much more like a high rise apartment in comparison to the Ghila cliff dwellings created by the peoples of the Mogollon culture that I visited earlier. You can see some similarities in the sites locations, both being in relatively sheltered areas close to life giving water sources which would have made life in the desert possible and likely more pleasant too, as the real estate folks say “location, location”…
Unfortunately you can no longer enter the actual dwelling and are only allowed to view it from the area below. It is still quite dramatic!
This site is a National Monument and a visit of an hour or so would allow you to take it all in. Definitely stop by if you are in the Cottowood/Sedona area. You can see my photos in this album.
On my last day in camp I explored the nearby day use area and hiked up the canyon for a bit. I was able to spot a cool bee hive in the wild, something I had never seen before. Safely tucked up on the side of a cliff, out of reach from predators, these smart bees have a cool home!
Next stop will be at Lake Pleasant Regional park which is closer to Phoenix and Scottsdale where I can visit another of Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous houses!
Hey Its Gregg! 