Ansel's Spring Walkabout

It's not a castle and Montezuma was never here.

Nestled into a limestone recess high above the flood plain of Beaver Creek in the Verde Valley stands one of the best preserved cliff dwellings in North America. The five-story, 20-room cliff dwelling served as a "high-rise apartment building" for prehistoric Sinagua Indians over 600 years ago. Early settlers to the area assumed that the imposing structure was associated with the Aztec emperor Montezuma, but the castle was abandoned almost a century before Montezuma was born.

Panorama by Ansel Boyce Photography ©2005

Sinagua farmers began building this five story, 20-room dwelling early in the 12th century. It stands in a cliff recess a hundred feet above the valley. Early settlers marveled at the structure and thought mistakenly that it was Aztecan in origin. A short distance west is Castle A, once an imposing six-story apartment with about 45 rooms, now a badly deteriorated ruin. This dwelling was built against the base of the cliff. The Sinaguans probably thought this was a good place to live. The creek was a reliable source of water, and there was fertile land on the nearby terrace.

Montezuma Castle was so securely built that it is now one of the best preserved prehistoric structures in the Southwest. Nearby one can also see some of the remaining ruins from an additional six-story 45-room dwelling which was built at the base of the cliff.

About 1150 the Sinagua began building their large pueblos, often on hilltops or in cliffs. This was a time of concentration in the valley center, probably in response to drought and ensuing strife. The villages at Montezuma and Tuzigoot reached their present size in the 1300s and were occupied for another century. In the early 1400s. the Sinagua abandoned the entire valley. No one can say why: perhaps too much pressure on the land, perhaps conflict with the Yavapai, who were living here when the Spanish entered the valley in 1583. Whatever the reason or reasons, the survivors were probably absorbed into pueblos to the north.

Echinocereus boyce-thompsonii

Common Name(s):

Boyce-Thompson Hedghog

Synonym(s): Echinocereus fasciculatus

Echinocerens comes from the Greek word for hedgehog, echinos. Early settlers thought the spines of the cactus made it look like a hedgehog. Triglochidialus means "three barbed bristles". The hedgehog cactus has clusters of three spines along its ribs. Each spine can be 2 to 3 inches long.  The flowers are a beautiful deep red, with many petals that form the shape of a cup. The fruits are red, and edible. The flowers bloom from April through June, and are the first to bloom in the desert. Unlike other cacti, they stay open at night, and bloom for about 3 to 5 days. This species is the only red-flowered hedgehog.