Restored Ruin and Ladder in Long Canyon

On 14 February 2015, thirteen Skyliners set out from Cottonwood to hike up Long Canyon to the site of a restored Indian ruin and a rickety wooden ladder that leads to a dark opening in the canyon wall high above.

We left from the Cottonwood Safeway parking lot and drove north on Hwy 89A to Dry Creek Road in Sedona, took Dry Creek Road to the stop sign, turned right on Long Canyon Road (FR 152B) and continued 0.6 miles to the Long Canyon Trailhead. There is parking at the trailhead on the left side of the road for around a dozen vehicles. A larger parking lot was available about 0.3 miles back down the road at the Mescal Trailhead and a connector trail will take one from that trail to Long Canyon Trail. However, we arrived well before 0900 and were confident of finding space at the trailhead parking lot, so we continued on. George Everman and Akemi Tomioka joined us there.

It was a bright sunny day, perfect for hiking, and we doffed our jackets before hoisting our packs and heading up the trail into Long Canyon. About 0.6 miles along the way we saw where we would later turn off to visit the Birthing Cave, a side trip scheduled for the way back. The turnoff is located at the remains of an old barbed wire fence and the trail is semi blocked by the careful placement of debris, presumably to prevent Long Canyon hikers from making a wrong turn.

Continuing on our way up the canyon, we passed through an area covered with manzanita, scrub oak and juniper trees. By the time we arrived at the turnoff to what we call the Ice Cream Cone Ruins (not our goal for today), marked by a distinctive rock embedded in the trail (right), appropriately called Buttrock, the surrounding forest was composed primarily of Arizona cypress with some scattered oaks. We were more than two miles from the trailhead.

We continued on our way up Long Canyon for a considerable distance, entering an area with several large ponderosa pines scattered among the smaller trees, before turning left in a wash and then almost immediately climbing the left bank on a trail that would lead us to our goal, just a short distance ahead. From any break in the foliage along this section you can look ahead and see the canyon walls closing in all around.

Looking ahead while traveling up Long Canyon

After climbing out of the wash, one must take care to avoid missing the next turn, also to the left. A well-trodden path leads straight ahead, but the most direct route to the ruin leaves the narrow, flat shelf formed by the bank of the wash and climbs steeply up the canyon wall. To our left we saw two very small caves (left) set low in the red rock cliff. They were too small to enter, so we passed on by. The trail climbs steeply at first, then levels of for a short distance, as it traces along the ridge and crosses another side wash. It then turns sharply uphill again, heading straight toward a sheer red rock cliff. We are climbing along the side of a wash running down a sloping area beneath the high cliff wall of Long Canyon. Through breaks in the foliage we can see the ladder we intend to visit after our trip to the Indian ruin.

Magnified view of ladder seen from the trail across wash

But we didn't spend much time viewing the ladder on the way up. We were entirely too busy pushing and pulling our way up the steep trail.

Luckily, the trail is mercifully short and we were soon rewarded by our first sight of the ruin (right). There are two separate structures, the nearest one appears to have been restored simply by re-stacking the rock walls. The larger structure, on the other hand seems to have received more attention, with the rocks having been mortared in place. The mortar appeared to be mud based, probably made by mixing the loose dirt seen all around us with water.

The keyhole-shaped opening that served as an entrance to the larger house sported a wooden header (left) that appeared to be of fairly recent vintage, lending support to the idea of restoration.

The ruin is tucked deep in an overhang of the northeast facing cliff and little sun reached the area, so it was rather chilly. This caused me to wonder why the structures had been placed here in the first place. Indian dwelling were normally faced for the maximum amount of winter sun.

While sheltered by the overhang, I noticed that my GPS was constantly pinging to signal that it had lost or regained a signal and I knew that signals must be leapfrogging back and forth across the canyon. The track would surely be a mess when I uploaded it to my computer and my GPS mileage reading would be recording the leaps across the canyon as distance hiked. Sure enough when I later uploaded the track this is what I saw (right). As I had expected, the instrument had recorded over 12 miles, at least twice the distance we had actually hiked.

After a quick snack in the shade of the overhang, we made our way across the head of the wash to visit the ladder. There, with the sun to warm us, we would tarry long enough to eat lunch before heading back down the canyon. The climb across the head of the wash was a perilous journey, best done by those with a stout heart and a sure foot. The two photographs below show the path behind me and the path ahead as I made my way across the head of the wash.

The trail behind

 The trail ahead

Once we had crossed over the wash we had a close-up look at the ladder and the mysterious place it led to above. After one close look at the condition of the ladder (left), I resolved that whatever lurked in the darkness above would remain a mystery for me. I was not about to climb the rickety, aged structure to see for myself, even though it did have a few shiny new nails in the bottom rungs.

Alongside the ladder stood the remains of an old stone structure (right). Perhaps it was for the use of a guard stationed there to prevent enemies from using the ladder. For us, it was another mystery to file along with the question of what was at the top of the ladder.

As expected we were now in a sunny, pleasant place with a magnificent view for our lunch break.

Looking back down Long Canyon while eating lunch at the ladder

We tried to locate the positions of some of the other Indian ruins in Long Canyon from this viewpoint. I was not at all successful in that.

After everyone had eaten and rested, we roused ourselves for the climb back down to the main trail. Hikers are shown here (left) climbing down from the ledge where we had eaten lunch.

When we arrived back at the bottom of the canyon, we stopped in the wash where we rejoined Long Canyon Trail for a photograph. Two of our hikers, Tim and Patty Caron, had other commitments and had left us earlier, so we now numbered thirteen.

Left to right: George Everman, Collene Maktenieks, Lila Wright, Cindy Emmett, Daisy Williams, the author (sitting), Karl Sink (rear), Akemi Tomioka, John Ashworth, Gilliam Ashworth, Beverly Sass and Joanne Hennings – photograph by Name Withheld

The hard part of the hike was now over and, except for a short, steep climb for those who would visit the Birthing Cave on the way back, the rest of the way was an easy downhill stroll through the scattered ponderosa pines, the Arizona cypress and large oaks, the manzanita, scrub oaks and junipers to the parking area where our vehicles awaited.

When we reached the turnoff to the Birthing Cave, four members of the group chose to continue on to the trailhead and wait for the seven who would visit the cave. That was quite understandable as many of us have already been there more than once and, truth be told, it is not very impressive.

At the turnoff we stepped over the assorted debris, placed on the side trail to keep Long Canyon Trail hikers from going astray, and continued along the trail that leads up to a saddle in Mescal Mountain and then continues on up to the top of the mountain. The Birthing Cave is located in the steep face of a mountain ridge protruding northeast from the gap in Mescal Mountain. To reach it we hiked along the gently rising trail toward the gap and then turned right onto a steep, well-worn side trail that climbed sharply for about 100 yards to the cave.

The cave itself is not much to look at, just a sheltered overhang in the steep cliff wall. The small cavity (right) is, according to what I have been told, where Indian mothers birthed their babies. I consider the whole idea to be nothing more than a tale made up for tourist consumption.

I saw nothing at the cave to indicate any possible Indian habitation except for a few rocks stacked at edge of the area covered by the overhang. They might have been placed there at any time. All in all, the best part of the Birthing Cave, in my opinion, is the view as shown below.

The best part of the Birthing Cave is the view

The red track on the attached map (next page) shows Long Canyon trail for its entire length as hiked on a previous trip. The trail does not have a specific ending point, but rather just ends in a welter of indistinct tracks that lead off in various directions and end separately after a short distance. One or more of these tracks might continue on to reach the canyon rim, but I really don't think so. Today, we had hiked around two-thirds of the way to the end of Long Canyon Trail before we turned off to visit the ruins.

At the conclusion of the track my GPS instrument indicated that we had hiked 12.2 miles, twice our actual hike distance. The anomaly is caused by satellite signals bouncing of the canyon walls under certain conditions.

Once I uploaded the GPS track to my computer and removed the extraneous cross-canyon pings, I found that the total distance for our hike today was 6.1 miles, the highest elevation was 5012 feet and the total ascent was 801 feet.