Montezuma Castle National Monument

What constitutes a national park visit? This question occasionally arises on Twitter chats, and people’s opinions vary. Some feel that a stop at the visitor center and a drive through the park is enough. Others insist a hike is required, or an overnight stay. Mr. Adventure and I fall more into the latter category. We always try to stop at the visitor center to orient ourselves, talk to a ranger, and plan a hike or two. Sometimes, though, those lofty goals fall by the wayside in favor of a fast walk, a few photos, and a national parks passport stamp.

That’s what happened at Montezuma Castle National Monument.

We were on our way to Phoenix to catch a flight home after a short visit to the Grand Canyon. When we’d driven north to the canyon the previous afternoon, we’d flashed by the brown sign for Montezuma Castle National Monument and briefly contemplated a detour, but decided to stop on the way back if we could.

Montezuma Well

Well, now we were on the way back, and I calculated we could spare about 45 minutes. We took the exit signed “Montezuma Well,” which is a small subunit of the monument located about 10 road miles north of the eponymous castle.

Winding through a small town and then onto a dirt road, I could feel myself getting tense. How far was this place, anyway? Would we make it back to Phoenix on time? Would we have time to see the castle too?

We pulled into a small parking lot, Mr. Adventure grabbed the national parks passport, and we bounced out of the car. The ranger station/visitor center was a trailer. Three people lounged on its tiny, shaded porch. Mr. Adventure went to get a park brochure and I looked at signage. There was a half-mile-long trail that skirted the well, so we set off, quickly climbing a small rise to the rim of Montezuma Well.

Wow. Below us a large pool of water, edged with algae and green shrubs and trees, shimmered slightly in the heat. Once we tore our gaze from this unexpected desert pool, we noticed cliff dwellings built into the side of the wall above the pond. Clearly this would have been prime real estate for ancient peoples.

In fact, Montezuma Well is a rare geological phenomenon. Only 13 inches of rain fall here every year, but the well holds 15 million gallons of water. How is that possible?

Geology and endemic species

The water comes from the Mogollon Rim, the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau that cuts across Arizona and into New Mexico. Water falls as rain and snow at high elevations along the Rim and verrry slowly percolates through rock layers into the earth. At Montezuma Well, a layer of volcanic basalt far underground stops the water, forcing it back toward the surface. The water filled an underground chamber and eventually created the sinkhole now called Montezuma Well.

Although the water doesn’t look exactly potable, it isn’t stagnant. During its long journey through the rock, the water picks up chemicals, especially carbon dioxide and arsenic. This means the pool can’t support fish, so there aren’t any there. But the well does support five — five! — endemic species, more than any other spring in the Southwest. They are the Montezuma well springsnail, the Hyalella Montezuma amphipod (a teeny tiny shrimp-like critter), a diatom (a kind of single-celled algae), a water scorpion, and the Motobdella Montezuma leech. The amphipod, scorpion, and leech are the players in a nightly drama of survival at the well, while the springsnail and diatom sort of hang out at the edges.

Each day, 1.5 million gallons of new water flows into the well, and the overflow spills out a narrow cave on the southeast side and into a creek and an irrigation canal dug in the eighth century, parts of which are still used today.

A sacred place for indigenous peoples

Many indigenous cultures have connections to this place. Early Hohokam peoples dug a pit house, located just off the entrance road, in about 1050 CE. They used the irrigation canal to water crops of corn, squash, and beans, the “three sisters” of indigenous agriculture that are still central to Southwest cuisine. The cliff dwellings, which contained 30 or more rooms, were built by the Sinagua people in the 1100s. The well site is one of perhaps 60 villages that once thrived in the the Verde Valley. By the mid-1400s, the ancient peoples had left, but Montezuma Well looms large in histories told by the Zuni, Hopi, Yavapai, and Western Apache peoples.

So there we were, standing in the hot sunshine on the rim of the well, trying to process a thousand years of human history in, oh, a 15-minute visit. As we speed-walked the rest of the loop trail back to the parking lot, passing the lush trees along Beaver Creek, this irony was not lost on us.

At this point, I was skeptical we could visit Montezuma Castle and still make it to the airport on time, but we knew we had to try.

Montezuma Castle

Twenty minutes later, we pulled into the surprisingly full Montezuma Castle parking lot and raced into the Visitor Center. Mr. Adventure got the national parks passport stamped and I quickly scanned the postcards, which I bring home and tape up in my office closet to remind me of these extraordinary places. No luck here, though, so we headed out to the short interpretive trail, and immediately encountered several men dressed in 19th-century military attire, talking and laughing as they walked past us.

Just beyond them, a large tent was set up and more men and women milled about, talking with visitors and showing off gear and clothes. I’m drawn to events like this, probably a byproduct of working on the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial commemoration for several years. There’s something about people in period garb.

Rough Riders at the castle

We found out they were members of Troop 1A of the Arizona Rough Riders Historical Association, there to mark President Theodore Roosevelt’s 160th birthday and share the contributions of northern Arizona’s all-volunteer “Rough Riders” of the Spanish-American War of 1898.

It was Teddy Roosevelt, of course, who got Congress to pass the Antiquities Act in 1906. The Act, which has been recently subject to challenges including the reduction of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, gives the president power to proclaim national monuments to preserve the cultural, scientific, natural, and historic significance of unique places.

Roosevelt used the Antiquities Act to protect a number of sites in the American Southwest, which were subject to rampant looting and vandalism in the early 20th century. Montezuma Castle was one of the first national monuments proclaimed by the president, who also protected Devils Tower and El Morro during the first year of the Act’s existence.

Of course we couldn’t linger, much as I wanted to. I would have happily spent the afternoon listening to the Rough Riders, contemplating TR’s contributions to public lands preservation, and wandering the park. Instead, we tore ourselves away and half-ran down the paved path, stopping when we spotted the namesake “castle” nestled in the cliff far above.

Not Montezuma, not a castle

Despite looting and damage by curious visitors, Montezuma Castle is one of the best-preserved cliff dwellings in the Southwest. While the monument itself is small, covering just 1.3 square miles, the cliff dwelling is enormous: five stories tall with 20 rooms in about 4,000 square feet of space. And the Southern Sinagua people constructed it 90 feet up the side of a sheer cliff.

Early visitors could climb ladders and get inside the cliff dwellings, but the Park Service stopped allowing access in the early 1950s because of human-caused damage and safety concerns. You can see several photos of the interior on the park’s website, including one of the sturdy beamed ceilings inside and valley views that show the site’s strategic location.

Culture and context

Built around 1150, this remarkable cliff dwelling is just one of several structures at the site. Castle A, whose crumbled remnants sit closer to ground level a short way past the cliff dwelling, was also five stories but had more than twice as many rooms. Rockshelters are clearly visible in the cliff walls. On the other side of the walkway, Beaver Creek (the same waterway that flows past Montezuma Well) burbles. The Southern Sinagua grew crops here, using water from the creek for irrigation. As at Montezuma Well and other sites throughout the Southwest, the people abandoned the area by the mid-1400s, perhaps because of long-term drought, war, or disease.

We tried to take all of this in as we snapped a few photos and skimmed interpretive signage. Montezuma Castle is one of a group of national monuments in the larger region that preserve and interpret important cultural sites. Tuzigoot National Monument is only about 35 minutes away by car, but we couldn’t make it there that day. Walnut Canyon, Tonto, and Casa Grande national monuments are all within a few hours of Montezuma Castle, too.

On the road again

Forced by the time crunch to skip the exhibit on the Southern Sinagua in the visitor center, we dashed back to the car. Back on the highway, we floored it to Phoenix.

I’m glad we stopped at Montezuma Castle and Well, even if the visit was much too short. But I’m not thrilled with the blurred memory of the experience. I would have liked to sit on the rim of the Well and think about the lives of the people who relied on its water. I would have liked to trace the outflow along the irrigation canal and looked at the pit houses and room ruins nearby. I would have liked to view the Southern Sinagua exhibit at the Castle visitor center. I would have liked to talk with the Rough Riders about Theodore Roosevelt and contemplate the central role of the Antiquities Act in helping us understand where we live. I would have liked to attend a ranger talk. In other words, I would have liked a lot more time.

Perhaps that’s the nature of national park visits. Anytime I’m lucky enough to visit one, I always end up wanting more. But I feel very fortunate to be able to visit at all.