A sunny afternoon, an open interstate, and an official NPS unit in the GPS. There aren’t many better ways that Elizabeth and I could draw up a Sunday afternoon. On February 4, 2024, we were just in the process of finishing up our weekend getaway to Arizona by driving back from Sedona to Phoenix. Just after we got on I-17, signs began directing us toward Montezuma Castle National Monument. From what little I knew of Montezuma Castle, it was a Native American pueblo from pre-Columbian times. Perfect fodder for one history buff and his NPS enthusiast wife.
We arrived at the entrance to the park at around 3:00 pm just as the day’s shadows started to get long.
The entrance to the park was on a road that wound up a long bluff for several minutes. Then, just as the in-car GPS started to show that we were approaching the Visitor’s Center, the bluff abruptly ran out. A river (Beaver Creek) made a wide horseshoe inside a canyon around the point of this bluff. Suddenly, the car’s brakes were groaning as we plummeted down the canyon wall and skittered into the parking lot.
The Visitor’s Center to Montezuma Castle National Monument is a must-visit – literally, because the trail to see the historic site leaves out of the back door. The building is a rather prosaic modern-looking construction of brick, and it sits well-tucked within a grove of those desert-type trees that I was really rapidly coming to enjoy. Inside was the standard setup – a help desk with a ranger, a small gift shop, and an exhibit highlighting the history of the site. I’d say that the exhibit was good, not great – but the NPS sets such a high standard for themselves that I might be unfair in doing so.
The gist of Montezuma Castle – as you may expect, this cliff dwelling did NOT house the famous Aztec emperor Montezuma, who would have been very lost indeed if he ended up in northern Arizona. Instead, the cliff dwelling was constructed by the Sinagua People sometime in the 12th century and inhabited until about the 15th century. The Sinaguas made use of the annual flooding of Beaver Creek to promote agriculture on the canyon floor, and they constructed their dwelling well up the cliff wall. Nobody is entirely sure why the Sinaguas abandoned Montezuma Castle, but it had been in disuse for centuries before Americans discovered it and turned it into a tourist destination in that uniquely American way.
I would have loved to have learned more, but we did still have a flight to catch from Phoenix. So Elizabeth and I ambled down the short 1/3 mile loop trail that led out to the main attraction. Once again, I was struck by the variety and beauty of the trees down here in the river valley. Maybe this isn’t the case everywhere in the state, but the switches in terrain and land cover based on local geography and elevation in Arizona ended up being one of my favorite parts of the trip.
After just a couple of minutes, Elizabeth and I reached our destination. We stood there, gawking at the Montezuma Castle.
Now THAT is what we call a man cave (I’ll see myself out).
It’s not just the main buildings, either. The Native Americans built themselves all sorts of tunnels and doors and rooms.
This gave a little bit of a sense of how they used the local terrain – in particular the knowledge that they got more sun against their south-facing dwelling in the winter than when the summer sun was directly overhead. In a lot of subtle ways, the pre-Columbian peoples were geniuses at stuff like that. It was still a little hard to envision this crumbly cliff face as a community of 30 to 50 people, which is why my favorite feature that the NPS added to the park was essentially a narrated diorama showing how life may have functioned for them.
I’m still sort of amazed that any boy lived past the age of 7 without getting too adventurous and jumping off of a way-too-high ledge, but it was a cool perspective.
And that was pretty much all that Montezuma Castle had to offer! I would have enjoyed getting to walk up into the dwelling, but that’s a thing that Elizabeth and I will get to do at Mesa Verde one day. Just seeing this one in an extremely brief detour off of the interstate was an awesome and totally worthwhile experience – at least, until we got notification while making the short loop walk that I-17 was closed just south of us due to an accident. That took a little bit of the wind out of our sails.
There was still plenty of time to get things sorted out. Montezuma Castle is only an hour and a half from Phoenix Airport under normal conditions, but it appeared my friend’s comment about the horrible nature of I-17 was going to make it a little bit dicier. This was the Mogollon Rim country – beautiful, but also rugged and mountainous, so there were extremely limited options for detouring. I directed Elizabeth into a wide detour on State Highway 169 across a low mountain range and into the wide Prescott Valley. From there, we followed the eastern flank of the Bradshaw Mountains southward on State Highway 69 back toward I-17. The whole time, Elizabeth and I kept praying that the interstate would open back up. We got to the interstate and had to come to a complete halt within sight range of the stopped traffic. Just as spirits in the rental car began to sink, traffic slowly lurched to a start again. The accident was cleared; we were on our way to Phoenix.
The next hour or so were extremely nerve-wracking for Elizabeth as the interstate made a tortuous descent from the mountains down into the broad valley that housed Phoenix. Traffic got more and more aggressive, something she doesn’t always respond happily to. But before long, we’d arrived at a gas station just outside the airport to fill up the rental car and throw away our trash.
The sun was setting on Phoenix by the time the airport train arrived to bring the two of us from the rental car center all the way over to the Southwest terminal.
In general, my feelings about Arizona match those of many others who visit there. It’s an underrated country full of diverse scenery and surprisingly abundant wildlife, and I want to get back there before too long. However, that doesn’t quite extend to Phoenix, which feels a bit too much like a suburban hellscape for my liking.
Elizabeth and I had an extremely “meh” pizza from the Phoenix Airport to wrap up what had previously been a top-tier vacation in terms of food. Our flight back to OKC was unexceptional and got the job done. It was late by the time we arrived, but that’s how you cram the most possible fun into a weekend.
As I said before, Arizona (and especially northern Arizona) seems like a place that is surprisingly way up my alley. I loved the mountains; I loved the canyons; I even loved the weird little petrified logs. Elizabeth and I will certainly be back for the two remaining national parks in the state at some point in the future. But until then, I really hope she enjoyed her surprised Christmas present.
