My recent trip started at this impressive hilltop pueblo overlooking the Verde River valley in Arizona. The ancestors of several different Native American tribes migrated through the Southwest over centuries. Each site provides another glimpse into this fascinating history.
Click to see my photos of all national park units in Arizona.
We’re fortunate that Padre Kino wrote about the ‘Great House’ here in 1694, and that almost 200 years later President Harrison preserved the ruins. The O’Odham or desert people built the Hohokam or earthen buildings at some point over the two thousand years (at least) they flourished here, experts in canals and trade.
Today’s Gila River is tiny and dry, since most of its water has been diverted for Phoenix & Tuscon. With the climate crisis exacerbating drought, whole river valley ecosystems are turned to dust as we maintain golf courses and landscaping. Too busy and thoughtless to notice our destruction of the natural world, people drive air-conditioned SUVs to buy iced coffee, oblivious to the oblivion we cause.
Click to see my photos of all national park units in Arizona.
No photo. Closed. Buried. Gone. No national park site. Just an article about Hohokam Pima National Monument. The archeologists covered their dig sites to protect the cultural heritage and have left nothing to see. And frankly, the public isn’t welcome here. The Gila River Indian Reservation doesn’t want tourists traipsing over the burial grounds of their ancestors. If you’re interested in their culture and artifacts, visit their nearby museum. And if you’re on some kind of quest to visit all of the national park units in the lower 48 states, then just be content with driving through the monument under the Goodyear Road overpass on I-10 between Phoenix and Tucson. Don’t stop. There’s literally nothing to see here.
Click to see my photos of all national park units in Arizona.
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