Hiking in the high desert.

Last Saturday, my daughter led a teaching tour to an archeology site near Pomerene, on the San Pedro River. We drove part way through a ranchers' fields, over a few dry washes,until we came to a large wash that we couldn't navigate the truck over. We left the truck there but the others were travelling in this:::: So they could cross the boulder strewn wash and the next mile to the site. The person in the back is sitting on a lawn chair ,that she assured me was bungycorded to the floor. Still didn't look too safe to me but guess it beats walking through the prickly cactus fields. We walked a mile from there to the site and two miles back as we got a little lost . It was in the 80's.

Sunday ,it was again in the 80's and Jacquie led a group of 8 to another site . This time we could drive all the way again through rancher's fields. ( a lot of gates to open and close) Over the San Pedro dry river bed to the base of a high cliff. Imagine, carrying water and food up this steep cliff. Life must of been very hard then.

I am standing on the top of the cliff looking down and across to another cliff. It is a long way down to the river valley . Here we are measuring distances between the stone house walls on the site. Part of the "site stewart " program. I just wandered around looking for pottery sherds, that I had to replace in the same spot. It's very strange touching something that another person made and used, possibly a thousand years ago.

Today, Sat. we went to another site with another group of interested locals. Seen some agriculture fields made up of piles of stones. Supposedely the stone piles protected the agave cactus roots from wild animals rooting them up and collected the dew and rain water. Then we walked to the 2 villages on this site. The walk was treacherous because we had to walk through a "Cholla forest" to get there. The Cholla cactus are know as the "jumping cholla" for a very good reason. Come within two feet of them and somehow they manage to stab you., We all picked big spines out of our shoes, jeans and shirts during and after the hike.

Crossing the wild poppie covered desert to the Cholla 's

A close up of the mean cactus.

After all this strenuous hiking and cactus spine removal, we had a wonderful potluck lunch at the home of one of the hikers. Great day... except for those darn chollas.