Venturing eastward, staying home

There . . .

There was really no resisting when we were invited to Kansas for Christmas with family there.  Sara & Ray hosted us wonderfully and what a delight to have time with them and our granddaughter, Trinity.  Because everyone had taken covid precautions prior to the visit, we felt safe being together.  

We were introduced to the newest member of the family - Reggie the hedgie. . .

. . . were thrilled that Kansas gifted us with hiking weather at area lakes . . .

. . . forests . . .

. . . and along the wide Missouri.

We passed on our decades-long collection of Christmas decorations, cooked, ate, toured Kansas City's awesome light displays, saw the "Christmas star" and just generally revelled in the love, hugs and laughter that were dispensed freely amidst the visiting.

 

 

That's Sara's banana tree encroaching on the family photo.

Even her garden got in on the festivities with a miraculous purple petunia blossom bursting forth as if it was not the middle of winter.

Here . . .

To soften the sadness of departing from those loved ones, we arrived home to host our niece, Shannon, who came to visit her old auntie.  Not unlike our usual family affairs, we did plenty of horsing around, letting love and laughter dispel some of the gloom and doom of pandemic blues. . .

. . . but occasionally tried to act our age lest we go down in history as complete hysterics.

Interest in history seems to be a common Kelley/Wuehrmann family trait, so in addition to wandering the countryside, touring historic Fort Verde and clamoring aboard old equipment, we indulged in lots of discussion about our forebears. 

One of my most recent projects along those lines was to organize and archive many old family letters and postcards, but where would be the fun in that unless I got to share them with kin.  Lucky for me they were interested and asked lots of questions!

Traversing Red Tank Draw and a roundup . . .

The señor floated the idea that we check out a canyon that was reputed to have prehistoric rock art, and Shannon & I were on board, basically with wherever that would get us out and about.  Our journey was slated for the Verde Valley, the theory being that it would be warmer in that lower elevation, and so it was.

Before we had even disembarked from the car, we found ourselves in the path of a small herd of cattle that were being driven by two cowboys and three dogs.  Not the usual fare we offer up for visitors, so we called a halt to observe the proceedings.

I'm not sure how enthusiastic those cowboys were about their task, but I guarantee those dogs were over the moon with excitement!  You could just about see the grins on their faces as the cows were pushed across the creek bottom and up a canyon on the other side.  Later on, after the herd was in place in its new pasture, we met the canines at streamside when they ran down for a quick drink, a howdy-do to us and then were loping off again to meet up with the men on horseback.

With that excitement behind us, we cogitated about which direction to take along the creek.  Seems that my pard had led us over there without much information in the ideal course of travel, so we eeny-meeny-miney-moed and set off, a difficult proposition no matter which way we went.

Red Tank Draw is walled in mostly and not surprisingly by cliffs of red rock.  Beautiful, to be sure, but oh, that canyon bottom was something else!  Rim to rim it was nothing but boulders, boulders, boulders, and most of them unstable, ready to propel the unsuspecting human forward, backward or sideways at each wobbly step.

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Western bluebirds flocked to perches on leafless limbs above sporadic waterholes.  In places, the streambed was dry and in others springs pooled up and water flowed, only to disappear back under the surface further on.  The only other birds we noted down there were dark-eyed junco and canyon wren.

After way too much treacherous trekking, we determined that our 50-50 chance of turning in the direction to find petroglyphs was a bust, so a backtrack was in order.  That did, indeed, take us to scattered panels of rock art for a long distance along the cliffs.

We encountered a few other folks in the depths; everyone was helpful in answering inquiries about where rock art was to be found.  Because we were all rock-hopping/stumbling/attempting to remain upright and in one piece, no one wanted to go further than necessary.

I will say I enjoyed the beauty of the canyon as much as the petroglyphs . . .

. . . including the distance vistas we were rewarded with after we climbed up and out.

Return to Date Creek, the fort's ruins . . .

On a recent day spent in the Date Creek region (again lower elevation for winter boondocking), we had basically stopped here, there and the next place for random explores of whatever was to be found.  I wanted to return to explore a deep lava-sided canyon we saw in the distance, and then there was Camp Date Creek, a short-lived frontier military base that promised to be of interest.

 The U.S. Army established the fort during hostilities with the natives of the region, naming it Camp McPherson, and then government-like abandoned it in a few months for a base in Skull Valley.  For whatever reasoning that seemed logical at the time, it was reestablished not long afterward as Camp Date Creek and moved at least twice before its abandonment in 1873.

We found the remnants of rock walls, later discerned to be the commissary, and another smaller ruined structure, most likely a laundress' quarters.  We based those deductions on a plat map of the fort.

The section of wall in the photo below was different.  I surmised that it might have had a stove in front of it because it appeared to have baked-on adobe plaster.

This is the much smaller structure that we found.

 

Previous visitors have consolidated artifacts they have collected from the area.

The canyon & a surprise . . .

After some scouting around, we located other rock walls that we could not discern a use for.  They were long, irregular and loosely constructed, but did not connect or enclose anything.  Had to leave that one as a mystery.

Still there was my original goal: the canyon, and we were running out of daylight, so we made our way across the lava-strewn desert to the rim.  It took a while to find a route down without risking life and limb on the very steep-sided chasm.

 

Who knows what I was expecting when I would finally access that gorge, but the one thing I hadn't thought of was numerous springs and flowing water.  We jumped out four mule deer as we scrambled downward.  Certainly the oasis must attract a large number of wildlife and birds.  

While we were there and around that region, we identified mourning dove, northern flicker, ferruginous hawk, red-tailed hawk, northern cardinal (what a treat!), northern mockingbird (surprised to see them there), phainopepla, pyrrhuoloxia, Gambel's quail, common raven, American robin, chipping sparrow, black-throated sparrow (stunning birds!), white-crowned sparrow and starling (in Hillside).

At the place we found a route into the canyon, it was somewhat open and wide with a goodly stream of water flowing.  As we continued downstream, the gorge narrowed and cut deeply through black walls of an ancient lava flow, and additional springs of water oozed out through cracks in the rocks.

We had to rock-hop across the water a couple of times in order to continue on, but finally came to a spot that required either getting our feet seriously wet or finding a route around the water that was filling the narrow ravine.  That was when I looked up from seeking footing and was astounded to see ancient petroglyphs pecked into the canyon walls!

If we had not had to peer upward at that point, we could have easily passed beneath the glyphs without the slightest knowledge of their presence.  Those inscriptions struck me as being even older than others I have seen and quite different.

We were excited to find that evidence of others who had passed that way so long ago.  As we continued along searching and photographing, we came to a more historic mark: a "J W" scratched into the surface just below an older mark.

My initial thought was that we might have found a mark made by Joseph Walker, the 1863 leader of the Walker party that brought prospectors/settlers to the area.  

After conducting research back at home, I discovered that in 1868, Capt. J. W. Weir was in command of companies "H" and "I", 14th Infantry, stationed at Camp Date Creek.  That leads me to believe that Capt. Weir was likely the one to inscribe his initials on that canyon wall in 1868.

Information about Camp Date Creek is sparse and sometimes contradictory.  Conflicts between Anglo interlopers and the natives of the region were ongoing in the 1860s.  The post was established in 1864 to protect those who had heard of the country open for settlement and/or for mining and were coming on roads between La Paz on the Colorado River, Prescott & Wickenburg.

One account of the historic frontier post refers to some log buildings, although that choice of building material seems odd because of the dearth of trees thereabouts, while rocks are a dime a dozen.  I've seen 1950s photos of the ruins that seem to show the same walls we found, but were far more substantial at that time.  Evidently, some or all of the structures were topped by mud roofs that became quite troublesome to maintain and were ongoing problems until shingles were supplied to replace them.

We saw no evidence at all of logs, shingles or anything else of substance, although in those days, anything of use would have been scavenged for incorporation elsewhere.

An 1868 account of the fort describes a quadrangular parade ground with the men's quarters, kitchen and post bake house on the north, officers' quarters on the south, the guard house on the east, and the hospital on the west.  Water was obtained from Date Creek in barrels and run through charcoal filters.

A reservation for the purpose of confining Indians of various tribes was established there in 1871, when there were approximately 225 being issued rations, a number that increased to nearly 1,000 by 1872.

With the removal of Army troops and cessation of that reservation, the place reverted to use by a couple of sheep men who ran their flocks there.  A post office remained to serve scattered settlers for several years afterward.

I am finding that area to be intriguing and intend to return, perhaps multiple times, for additional exploration.  Since doing the research about the fort, there is more country that we want to scout around, although truthfully, it's relatively inhospitable with rocky footing and thorny vegetation.  And then there's the canyon: time limitations kept us from going nearly as far as I had hoped.  Next time, we will plan on getting wet and seeing if we can manage to scramble further along.

Who knows; this may turn into one of our Edventures video tours for Yavapai College.