Devil's Canyon

Devil's Canyon

Alan Cressler, Brandon Stephens, Jeff Moore, Greg Huston

Alan got us up at 6:37 AM. We were soon on the road. We had a 2 hr drive ahead of us to visit Diablo Cave. On the way we passed a road cut with 2 dikes and some crazy folds. The beds folded up and down like a roller coaster. Crazy! After a much needed piss stop we continued on our way. We passed Roosevelt lake and soon turned off onto a curvy side road heading up the valley. We passed hundreds of large Saguaro (Sa-roar-ro) cacti as we wound through the valley. We crossed a couple stream and the Saguaro were soon replaced by Teddy Bear Cholla. Eventually, we arrived at the base of the Devil’s Chasm Trail and begin the hike. For quite awhile we hiked above the stream through Maple forest before emerging onto the beautiful, smooth, granite bedrock. The canyon was gorgeous. Unfortunately, my camera was acting up so I wasn’t able to take any pictures hiking up. We chimneyed and climbed to the right of a would be waterfall and followed the granite floor as it begin to fill with rocks and trees again. Alan and I started up an animal trail, determined that was the wrong way and contoured around on some sketchy slopes. We climbed even higher before retreating back to the canyon floor where we rediscovered the poorly marked trail. After climbing much higher up steep dirt and scree slopes, we finally saw the cliff dwelling. More steep climbing brought us to the edge of these crazy Indian’s previous home. Why they would build a house way up here is beyond me. They must have been stout! The cliff dwelling was the most intact that Alan had seen. It consisted of 3 rooms which contained montur wooden structures. It also had 2 grinding stones and broken pottery. At the other end of the structure there was a nice, somewhat exposed, overlook. I posed for many of Alan’s pictures. The doors between rooms were really small. To Diablo Cave

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Devil's Canyon Gallery

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