Montezuma Well and Castle

After 6 states, 1,499 miles and 4 days I arrived in Tucson this afternoon!!!!!! Long trip but boring in some places and really interesting in other places.

One of the places that Larry and I never got to while we lived here was Montezuma Well and Castle that is about half-way between Phoenix and Flagstaff. So I decided to stop there today on my way down from Flagstaff. It was really interesting and well worth the time.

The Well is about 5 miles from the Castle. Basically, the well is a fresh water lake fed by an underground spring that flows at the rate of 1.5 million gallons per day. The area receives an average of 13" of rain per year... All this water comes from water in the mountains that does down into the earth and hits a dam in the aqua fir which forces it back up to the surface. The water is a constant 74 degrees. No fish are in the lake but it is full of freshwater leeches.

Here are some mallard ducks in the water. The greenish stuff is aquatic Pond weed, kinda like algae. The Pond weed has 25 ft roots making it the tallest aquatic plant in the world. The leeches feed on the Pond weed as do the ducks.

Montezuma Castle is the hollowed out structured in the cliff. The Sinagua Indian farmers built a five-story 20-room dwelling sometimes between 1100 and 1300. The section is the largest and is 100 feet above the valley. When you look at the hill side, you can see other dwellings but this is by far the largest one. The farmers used ladders to access their homes.

The darker color is where a thin layer of stucco was put over the original limestone bricks to keep them from crumbling. The lighter color is still the original brick and stucco. To me, it is hard to imagine that people a thousand + years ago had the skill to do things like this. Very interesting!