A ranch and a river

Once again on a recent balmy morning, we jumped at the opportunity to revisit a stomping ground of old: Del Rio Ranch.  Through the efforts of the Chino Valley Historical Society - Kay Lauster, to be exact - we joined a group visiting that historic site.  With its once-artesian water and lush grasslands, that quarter of Chino Valley was prime for settlers, and hosted Arizona's first Territorial government prior to those officials moving onto Granite Creek to be closer to the burgeoning population of gold seekers in 1864.

After the departure of Territorial officials, a military contingent, and a newspaper publishing outfit, the place was homesteaded and farmed.

Quite a bit more personally, I wandered those grounds early in my Yavapai County tenure, and Chris resided in one of the several residences on the ranch.  

An adobe building that is said to have predated the Territorial and military personnel was damaged in a fire and the ruins bulldozed much later.  Both Chris & I remember being in that roofless structure and being surprised to see prehistoric pottery shards incorporated into the adobe mud walls.

In this photo, Kay is at the adobe's site and showing photos of the building in its heyday.  Oh yes, the señor is getting in his two cents worth.

The remaining structures are nearly all badly deteriorated.  Although the property is leased for running cattle, it is for sale and nothing is being done to preserve the buildings, unfortunately.  They all date from the days in the early 1900s when the Fred Harvey company maintained a thriving business there for supplying its Grand Canyon and other enterprises with water, produce, dairy products and meat via the railroad line that borders the ranch.

Several of our friends from younger years resided in others of the dwellings at Del Rio.  It's one thing to wander through abandoned houses, which we've done many times, but there's something very odd in doing the same in buildings that were a part of our life.  The boards and stones of structures derive their life from those within their walls; when they are left alone, they begin a slow decline to collapse as if deprived of breath and blood.

Dave & Sam lived in this big blue house and it was full of energy then.  How strange to enter there now and feel its lifelessness.

 

 

Some left their mark as they worked to build ditches to move precious water from one pasture to another.

As a group, we walked the two-track that leads to the small Del Rio burying ground, now severely overgrown with huge weeds fed by the summer's monsoons.

Where once there were markers placed to memorialize those they laid to rest there, now one grave only is visible, undoubtedly the other stones taken away by vandals.  I photographed that cemetery sometime about 1977, and in a fit of doing what's right, donated the prints to Sharlot Hall Museum.  Sad to say, that facility has failed in that bit of preservation; they seem not to be able to retrieve the photos.

 

 

It was a fine day to share memories and to wish that ranch, with its prehistoric and historic importance could be saved from becoming yet another high-dollar megalopolis green with golf courses instead of livestock pastures, paved smooth instead of rolling hills dotted with native vegetation, covered with huge high-dollar houses for retired couples instead of modest structures that speak of a life close to the land.

 

 

Before the river . . .

. . . I had the opportunity to meet with friends in Camp Verde for a rousing game of mah jong.  It just so happened that the señor & I had planned to relocate Wolfie in that vicinity on that particular day.  Perfect - he dropped me off for the game (but not before imparting certain words of wisdom and snapping our pic) . . .

 . . . and proceeded to take the trailer on to the RV park and set it up in the shade of a giant mesquite tree. . .

. . . a lovely spot at Thousand Trails.  Since we stopped there in a previous year, the park has changed in its character quite a bit.  A great many of the RVs there are now full-time residences, which does not to my way of thinking improve its stature as a prime RV park.  No matter, we did avail ourselves of the nice pool and spa when we weren't getting skunked at fishing.

To be sure, although the score was badly skewed toward the fish, they did not all get away, and this big boy is proof.

One does have to put some effort into getting to the Verde River before one can use that perennial stream for fishing, swimming, kayaking or any of the other pleasurable pursuits that are to be had in that riparian environment.

From our perch, a trail of sorts started off simply enough, for a few yards at least, until it dropped off  on what once was likely a nice dirt path, but which has eroded into nothing more than a steep downhill climb over loose river rock.  Not terrible, really, as long as one exercises caution, at least until we came to a dropoff that was sheer enough that some before us had installed ladders.  One look convinced us that climbing down the rock face was safer than trusting either of those two wooden ladders, so that's what we did.

Over millennia, the river has carved out a wide valley in places.  The view across reveals rocky cliffs on both sides towering over flats thick with mesquite, cat claw and other desert vegetation, mostly inhospitable, with the lushness of cottonwoods and willows at the water's edge.

 

River seekers of the human and animal variety have found ways through the thickets that we utilized by meandering whichever way looked most feasible, backtracking when necessary and winding around in serpentine ways.

Our scramble took us over dried mud flats . . .

  

. . . revealed fall flowers . . .

 

 

 . . . visited by flitting nectar feeders. . .

 

 

. . . and autumn-hued Virginia creeper . . .

 

 

 

. . . before finally bringing us to the vegetation-tangled banks of the Verde.  Somehow, it always seems to me that the Verde is made more special because of its relative inaccessibility.

 

 

 

 

During our short stay, I was less enthusiastic about exploring the environment than is my wont, so more time was spent in slightly more sedentary pursuits.  We read, played cards, ate, lazed around in the spa listening to oldies, read some more, ate some more, and chatted with neighbors.

We did rouse enough to find another route to the river, a far easier walk in a wide level sand wash, which brought us to the site of a rudimentary rock dam that diverts water for irrigation.

That obstruction has backed the river's flow up into a miles-long pool far different than the Verde's more often whitewater rush over rocks.  It also transforms that section into more of an environment for catfish and carp than smallmouth bass and trout.

Others who wanted to gain the river bank have hacked away in places at cattails and bamboo to open up bits of shoreline.

Most of the shoreline, though, remains a brushy marshy morass through there.

Though my energy was at a fairly low ebb, I enjoyed being at the Verde, as always, and appreciated the señor encouraging the outing.  Certainly grief at the loss of our Darren is affecting my attitude toward life, but knowing that he would want us to savor each moment we are given helps to keep me going.  

 

I remember the last time we hiked into the Verde canyon with Darren: his enthusiasm was palpable as he fair ran from one spot to another, and was over the moon when he jumped out a herd of bighorn sheep.  We are cut from the same cloth.

Wrapping it up

At our supposed dry stopover in Bluff (after abandoning Colorado and New Mexico, the original state destinations of this jaunt), we continued to be dogged by rain.  Thankfully, most of the continuing drizzles were all-nighters that kept our camp wet and our boots clogged with mud, but allowed us some drier daylight to get in a couple of awesome adventures despite it.

In my last post, I mentioned that as the sun set, so did my best camera lens, causing me all kinds of angst and railing against the universe that would remove the joy of sharing photographs of our journeys.  Subsequently, we have arrived home and I have cooled my jets a bit about the injustice of it all.  It is, after all, a very expensive lens, not easily (or at all) replaceable, but we have endured so much worse that a person must decide to accept and go on.  That sounds far too melodramatic, but it accurately portrays my distress, undoubtedly exaggerated as I continue to mourn my son.

The better news is that we fiddled and faddled with the lens so that we were able to get it to function occasionally as long as it wasn't zoomed - at least until it failed utterly and completely but without my realizing that it had.  Such a long sad story here, sorry: the iPhone got us some shots until it said "Enough - charge me!"

Wolf Man . . .

Lest I belabor this point further, I will offer the story of one semi-photographed trek to, yup, another place that Chris read about: the Wolf Man panel.  That was another rock art site, one that was said to have safe access, but that in reality, I balked at.

I will sometimes hesitate at precipitous places and take time to gird my loins and/or evaluate how much of a risk I am willing to take; however, admittedly my inclination to risk my life has lessened with time.  As usual, the señor cajoled but I stood as firmly as I could on my stance that the sheer rock shelf on which I found myself was where I would remain while he proceeded sure-footedly across a stretch that I deemed unsafe. 

Chris thought I would regret not traversing that last section, but I did not at all.  There's something about teetering along a very narrow rubbley shelf with a high cliff on one side and a sheer dropoff on the other side that sets my innards to churning.  No matter how carefully I keep my eyes on my footpath, peripheral vision sees that lack of terra firma mere inches away.

I savored every bit of the hike there and back, though, as I marveled that each step brought a new and fabulous view into sight.

Because I chickened out, I allowed him to take the camera.  I'm glad I did; he snapped some exceedingly unusual images, although we still don't know whence the name of the site.

I cannot fathom the mindset of people who destroy those ancient glyphs left by those who came before.  In this case, someone has plinked away with a gun and pockmarked the site.  In addition to the current damage, I expect that vandalism will hasten the decay of those unusual and unique images.

While the continuing rain dampened my spirits somewhat, a drive out into the hinterlands allowed us to do lots of oohing and aahing as we watched storms march across the landscape.  Sadly, there was more of the oohing and aahing than photographing (see above).  The long lens and the iPhone let us record a bit of what we were blessed to view.

We started into the Valley of the Gods, one of our favorite places, but turned back to get onto pavement when rain followed us in there - not a safe road to be on during a storm unless one wants to remain there for longer than planned.

And speaking of impassable roads, at one juncture, we were met by a convoy of six unusual vehicles that got our attention.  I photographed the smallest of the bunch; the larger ones looked like fancy dancy armored cars.

Of course curiosity demanded that we learn more.  They are called Earth Roamers, touted to be luxury "solar/diesel hybrid four-wheel drive Xpedition Vehicles", actually just crazy over-the-top RVs.  And you could have your very own XV starting at a cool 1.7 million bucks!  That convoy we watched with mouths agape was worth upwards of $11 million.  We will likely stick with our Wolfie. . .

Monarch Cave . . .

Continuing to dodge storms, we headed out some miles on an unmarked rough dirt road that the señor assured me would deliver us to a place from which we could hike to Monarch Cave, and so it did . . . eventually.

That sky was looking pretty ominous, but we set off on our jaunt with only one of us feeling trepidatious (and it wasn't him).  Our route was down into a canyon in the incredible Comb Ridge, a mammoth many-miles-long feature consisting of solid rock tilted to a gentle slope on one side, cut with canyons throughout, and that is abrupt and precipitous on the other.

Our destination was a prehistoric cliff dwelling, one of many in the Southwest, but said to be extraordinary.  There was lots of walking along a winding canyon bottom and quite a bit of up the sidewall when obstructions blocked the way.  It was a beautiful hike, but more hurried than I like because there was that weather thing and we were fairly late in the day by then.

People had told us that the place was amazing, and so it was, in spades! 

The structures are preserved to a great degree and the siting is gorgeous!  It is tucked into a massive alcove protected by a huge overhanging rock shelf.  

 

Just below the primary site is a permanent plunge pool filled with water so inky that we didn't recognize it as water at first.

The place had a magical feeling about it: an unexplainable sense of awe pervaded our time there.  

 

 

The alcove extended around to another section at the same level where there were extensive pictographs.  From where we stood about halfway up the canyon wall, we saw some of the rock art, but sensed there was more shielded from our sight by the curvature of the rock.  That meant that if we wanted to see it, we would need to climb up the rather intimidating slick rock face, a prospect that I found daunting.  With a bit more self-talk and encouragement from my pard, I undertook the scramble, knowing as I did that it would necessitate a butt-scoot to get back down, and it did.

That long ledge had at one time held a series of rooms also.  The well-preserved mortared foundations were ample evidence of that section, as in the photo below.

Additional remnants from that early occupation were clearly visible throughout: a broken metate (grinding stone), potsherds and chipped stone, even a small corncob.

 

 

The back wall was covered with painted images in surprisingly varied hues: black, red, white and a green that we have never encountered before.  Many were handprints and a few were outlined hands.  In some cases, the coloration was present but the image had faded into indecipherability, not that we would have understood the meaning anyway.

 

 

I had a tough time writing about this splendid place, not because I had nothing to say, but because I was anxious to share the photographs I made in there, and they were mostly ruined.  We went in knowing about the camera lens issue; however, by then, it had begun malfunctioning in a way that I didn't realize.  As I was getting what I thought were wonderful shots, they were turning out like the one below, at first, and then finally nearly completely black.  It was disheartening, to say the least, after being in such a magnificent but relatively inaccessible spot.

 

At least we emerged with some photographic evidence and our memories of an incredible experience.  It rained on us for the entire hike/trot out of there and we had red clay amply clumped on our boots to prove it, and a trashed truck afterward.

During rare moments without rain, Chris got out the keyboard to play in the open air and all was well.