Spirit Hunter Petroglyph and V Bar V

Eleven Skyliner hikers visited the Spirit Hunter Solar Petroglyph¹ Site at the top of Blue Grade (Beaver Creek) Road and the V Bar V Heritage Site at Wet Beaver Creek on 22 December 2012. To reach Spirit Hunter, we traveled north on I-17 to the Stoneman Lake Exit, turned east on Stoneman Lake Road and followed followed it 0.8 miles before turning south on FR 689 (otherwise known as Blue Grade Road and also as Beaver Creek Road). We followed FR 689 for 3.4 miles before turning east and traveling 0.3 miles to park at a cinder pit close to the rim of Rarick Canyon. We then hiked south along the rim of the canyon for about 0.2 miles and descended to a ledge which we followed (going east at this particular point) for some seventy-five yards to arrive at the petroglyph. This route from FR 689 to the petroglyph is shown on the map (right).

A faint path marks the way from where we parked to the descent from the rim of the canyon. After a short, steep climb of about ten feet down from the rim, we followed the rocky, cactus infested ledge close along the rim to the solar petroglyph, crawling between the branches of a pinon tree (left) along the way.

Looking straight down from the ledge we were on, we could see the dry streambed in the bottom of Rarick Canyon. Eight-tenths of a mile downstream is where Mullican Canyon joins Rarick, and seven-tenths of a mile southeast (bearing 145° true) lies the Indian Ruins we visited just over a year ago on the rim of Mullican. However we could not see that site from here.

We passed several other petroglyphs on our way to spirit Hunter.

Petroglyphs seen along a ledge on the west wall of Rarick Canyon

We reached the Spirit Hunter Petroglyph (below) shortly after noon.

Spirit Hunter Solar Petroglyph

The appearance of this “calendar” at significant times of the year is illustrated at the Sinagua Sunwatchers website².

I scrambled several yards further along the ledge to reach a sharp point jutting out from the canyon wall. Lila, meanwhile, had gone back to where we descended from the rim to escort another hiker, who had belatedly decided to descend and join the rest of the group, along the ledge to the solar petroglyph where we would eat lunch. In the below photograph, she is shown returning to the petroglyph, which is hidden by the trees shown at right.

Lila moving along the ledge – photograph taken from a sharp point jutting 

from the canyon wall beyond the solar petroglyph

I had not yet reviewed the Sinagua Sunwatchers website, so we examined the petroglyph and tried, without much success, to decide for ourselves what it would look like during an actual solstice. We then perched on the sun-splashed rocks for lunch.

Left to right: Dolly Yapp, Lila Wright (red jacket), Kwi Johnson, George Everman, 

Colleen Maktenieks and Betty Wolters (peering around rock) – not shown are 

Jim Manning, Gary Brooks, Betsy Fader and Daisy Williams

– photograph by the author

After lunch, we made our way back along the ledge, climbed to the rim and hiked back to the parked cars.

We then decided that rather than return to I-17 for the descent to Verde Valley from the Mogollon Rim, we would take FR 689, a well-maintained dirt road. This road follows the rim of Rarick Canyon, passing Watermelon and Blue Grade Tanks along the way, down into Verde Valley and connects with FR 618. Turning east on FR 618, we followed it for 2 miles before turning into the V Bar V Heritage site at Beaver Creek.

The land at this site was “settled by Benjamin Franklin Taylor and his wife, Florence Newman Taylor. Ben Taylor's cattle were branded with the '100' brand, and the ranch became known as the '100 Place.'"³

The property passed through various owners until, “in 1927, James and Ida May Swift Minotto (of the Swift Meat Packing family), along with partners, C.C. "Whitey" Montgomery and Omer Maxwell, bought the 100 Place and a number of other small holdings, and formed the V Bar V Cattle Company.”⁴

The V Bar V brand “was first recorded by A.W. Bradford of Flagstaff in 1907,” passed to “C Montgomery of Camp Verde and in 1926, it was recorded to Ida May Swift Minotto. When the Minottos formed their cattle company in 1927, the V Bar V brand was chosen as the most simple and easy to use.” The brand is now owned by the University of Arizona, under which it operates a 71,000-acre Agricultural Experiment Station.⁵

The V Bar V Heritage Site, acquired by the Forest Service in 1994, is the largest known, and one of the best-preserved, petroglyph sites in the Verde Valley. It is said to contain more than a thousand petroglyphs in some thirteen separate panels.

A description of the site along with entrance fees and hours of operation is provided on the Coconino National Forest website at:

http://www.fs.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsinternet/!ut/p/c5/04_SB8K8xLLM9MSSzPy8xBz9CP0os3gDfxMDT8MwRydLA1cj72BTSw8jAwgAykeaxcN4jhYG_h4eYX5hPgYwefy6w0H24dcPNgEHcDTQ9_PIz03VL8iNMMgycVQEAIzTHkw!/dl3/d3/L2dJQSEvUUt3QS9ZQnZ3LzZfME80MEkxVkFCOTBFMktTNUJIMjAwMDAwMDA!/?ss=110304&ttype=recarea&recid=55424&actid=119&navtype=BROWSEBYSUBJECT&position=BROWSEBYSUBJECT&navid=110355000000000&pnavid=110000000000000&cid=null&pname=Coconino+National+Forest+Recreation+-+V-Bar-V+Heritage+Site

A spacious parking lot, is provided at the site, just 0.2 miles from FR 618. The visitors center, located alongside the creek near the old V Bar V winter headquarters site, is just ahead. The chimney from the old ranch house still stands, a silent witness to bygone days.

Old ranch house chimney at V Bar V winter quarters

Examining the chimney close up from a different angle reveals the V Bar V brand embedded in the vine-shrouded outside structural wall (right).

After checking in at the visitor center, we proceeded along the smooth, packed-sand surface of the trail leading to the petroglyphs, only 0.4 miles away.

A guide was available at the site to explain the meanings of some of the petroglyphs and how some of them were used to determine the seasons. Rather than try to remember his words, I will just show a photograph of a posted explanatory sign and follow that with a photograph of the “calendar.” The drawings thought to be significant in marking the seasons - when to plant crops, when to hold ceremonies, etc, are highlighted in Yellow. Look carefully and you can find them in the photograph below.

Posted explanatory sign

Petroglyph calendar at the V Bar V Heritage Site

The sun shines on the wall through a cleft in the rock, as shown in the lower right picture included on the explanatory sign (see Posted explanatory sign above) to highlight the various features pointed out in the sign. A photograph of the cleft (see arrow) is shown below.

Cleft through which the sun highlights various calendar features

The petroglyphs shown above were, I thought, the most impressive at the site, although there are many others to be seen.

Leaving the V Bar V Heritage Site, we split into two groups, four of us headed home while the remaining seven visited nearby Sacred Mountain.

Our travels from the I-17 Stoneman Lake Exit to the Spirit Hunter Petroglyph and on to the V Bar V Heritage Site are shown by GPS track on the below map (below).

1Name supplied by Lila Wright, Skyliner leader; no other reference found

2http://www.sinaguasunwatchers.com/tour/tour-3.htm

3http://cals.arizona.edu/aes/vbarv/historytimeline.html

4Ibid

5http://cals.arizona.edu/aes/vbarv/brandhistory.html