Montezuma Well and Montezuma Castle, April 8, 2016

Not far from the Cottonwood Thousand Trails are several national monuments.  Although I was here at Cotton in 2011, I didn't have a chance to explore the National Monuments  so this visit I made it a point to make sure I would see them.  The weather wasn't very co-operative...heavy rain showers and lightening but that didn't stop us from venturing out.

First stop was Montezuma Well.  The huge hole fills with water a percolates underground and served irrigation purposes for ancient tribes.  There were also some cliff dwellings.  You can see the dwelling in the upper left hand side of the photo. While I was there it started to pour rain and thunder with lightening.  The rangers warned to get off the rim in the event of lightening, so my exploring was cut a little short.

Next we went to Montezuma's Castle, which is not a castle and has nothing to do with Montezuma.  He we never there.  The cliff dwellings are some of the most well preserved examples of these type of pueblo dwellings.  Very little renovations have been done to them except resurfacing  the faces.

These are not just holes, but most likely caves and storage caches.

 This is a rendition of what the interior looks like

Along the path I ran across some wild flowers.

Interesting bark and tree.  I think it is a Sycamore Tree.

We had planned to go on to Tuzigoot NM but it started to rain and hail big time, so retreated back to the campground.  We'll catch Tuzigoot another day.