Betsy Bailey

Click to see my photojournal of our camping trip to Horseshoe Lake

February 14-15, 2009: Mesquite campground at Horseshoe Lake, Verde River.

Highlights of this trip:

• The Brazaletes Pueblo ruin at the summit of St. Clair Mountain was extremely fascinating. One of the most extensive ruin sites I’ve seen (that hasn’t been developed for public interpretation, that is).

• First time camping since Scott made the dinette modification. Compared to the bench seat we had previously, the dinette is SO family friendly. The set up is much roomier and the layout is far more conversational. I liked that there was room for the hubby, a tween and the toddler to sit there while I prepared a meal and served it to them at the table. When we had the bench, there wasn’t a lot of room for other people to sit on it while I was cooking – knees in the way. And, of course, no table, so I was handing the food out. We always had to eat outside. While that is usually something we WANT to be doing, since we’re camping, after all, it was pretty cold on this trip  (got below freezing at night) so we were glad to have the dine-inside-where-it-was-warm-and-comfortable option.

• HM fell into the river once while climbing out onto a tree from the beach at our campsite. Completely drenched, from head to toe. Later, after she was dried off and in dry, warm clothes, the dog dragged her into the water’s edge from the muddy beach. Not as wet this time, but much muddier. I think HM learned her lesson and now understands why I always harp about using the gentle leader!

• It was cold weather for falling into the freezing cold river (like HM did… twice!) or sitting at icy concrete picnic table, but it was the PERFECT temperature and conditions for hiking and exploring, which we managed to do a lot of on this trip!

We got some fresh air and exercise today, as well as an eyeful of some gorgeous scenery!

We did the Treasure Loop Trail (a little over 2 miles) at Lost Dutchman State Park, mostly staying at the base of the Superstition Mountains.

It was warm enough that Jake got a little frustrated being confined to the sweaty Ergo soft pack carrier.

Click the link below to see the complete photo story.

Hiking: Lost Dutchman State Park – a set on Flickr.

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For the third weekend in a row, we had a fun outdoors family excursion.

On Sunday, we loaded up the van and spent the day on the Apache Trail.

We had lunch at Tortilla Flats. We white knuckled through Fish Creek Canyon, a scary part of the drive that included tight hairpin curves, sheer drops off the edge of a one lane dirt road and… no guardrail!!

We stopped to check out Theodore Roosevelt Dam, which was a pretty impressive feat of engineering and then for the best part of the day: Tonto National Monument – a very cool ruin site of ancient cliff dwellings.

That cave is a 1/2 mile hike up a (paved) path – 350 vertical feet! <huff puff> with baby in sling. Hear me roar! I had to pace myself by walking very, very slowly. And I did not appreciate any of my children coming to a dead stop in front of me; maintaining a slow, steady slog was essential. This trail was *steep*.

Tonto National Monument consists of the ruins of two cliff dwellings established by the Salado Indians in about 1300 AD. The southeast-facing settlements were built quite high up a steep hillside within well-protected natural caves overlooking the Tonto Basin, which is now flooded forming Theodore Roosevelt Lake, though originally the Salt River flowed through the Basin which was therefore well irrigated and fertile. As with many other ancient peoples of the Southwest, the Salado appear to have abandoned their villages suddenly, early in the fifteenth century, for reasons which are not known.

The two-story ruin originally had 19 rooms; these are quite well-preserved and it is permitted to walk around the inside. Originally, the only access was by ladder leading to an entrance at the far left of the structure, which made the settlement easy to defend.

Here’s a pic of Mira doing the hike up to the ruins:

Here we are in the ruins:

See the wee little parking lot way down there??

Gorgeous Arizona:

The least enjoyable part of the trip was the drive through Globe-Miami – a copper mining town. Strip mining has really defaced the mountains in this area.

This is an interesting town, established in 1876 after a large globe-shaped boulder of silver was found nearby. Both copper and silver were later mined extensively, and several old buildings remain from the boom times around the turn of the century. A few miles west, huge copper ore extraction operations still continue around Miami, and US 60 passes several miles of tailings ponds and spoil heaps.