Rio de Flag and Old Caves Crater

A group of nine Skyliners hiked in the Flagstaff area on October 16, 2010.

Standing: Lila Wright, Donna Goodman, Daisy Williams, Virginia Driscoll, Anita Jackson and David Nelson; Kneeling: Betty Wolters, Dolly Yapp and Miriam Sterling - Photograph by Ester Diebel.

I was unable to hike that day and Lila Wright provided the information for this report. The hikers drove to Flagstaff, where they were joined by Betty’s friend Ester Diebel, and parked in the Elden Pueblo parking lot (see map at [below] for the location of the parking lot) and hiked 1.7 miles to Rio de Flag.

Elden Pueblo and Parking Lot

Lila provided a narrative and several photographs; which I used for this report. The two photos below show petroglyphs next to Rio de Flag.

Petroglyphs near Rio de Flag

Petroglyphs near Rio de Flag

In one area a stream had recently been restored to its original course. Our footprints were the first in this area since restoration.

Stream recently restored to original path

 – Skyliners leaving the first human footsteps in the restored area

We hiked south along the stream to the small Indian room shown below with Dolly inside.

Dolly crouched inside an Indian room

A little further south we viewed several small waterfalls and one larger one shown in the below photo.

Waterfall at Rio de Flag

We completed our visit to Rio de Flag by 11300 and Esther suggested another short hike only a couple of miles away. So we drove the short distance to the trailhead to Old Caves Crater. The distance to the top of the crater was 1.2 miles. The next photo, looking out of a cave, is followed by one looking into a cave.

View looking out of a cave at Old Caves Crater

View looking into a cave at Old Caves Crater

From this crater we looked west to the summer forest fire burn area on the side of the Peaks and to where flooding recently occurred.

Looking to the area of the summer forest fire

Showing the area where flooding recently occurred

There were Indian ruins in this area similar to Tuzigoot and pottery shards similar to that shown (below) are scattered everywhere.

Pottery shard

In the below photograph Ester Diebel is pointing out something east with her home in the background. Meanwhile, the small hill in the far background is the location of the Rio de Flag hike we completed before driving to our present location at Old Caves Crater.

The small hill, center right background, is the location of the Rio de Flag hike

No GPS track was made of this hike and no map produced. Nor are any statistics available. It was, however, reported to be an easy hike.