The Rarity of Ruins

One of the great things about my work in the Park Service has been to visit some of the more remarkable archaeological sites in the US. Whether it has been mapping the vegetation at Casa Grande NM and running across piles of pottery shards, or visiting sites in the backcountry of Tonto NM that are not open to the public, I've always been keen to value these unique opportunities. This past week I had the utmost of rare opportunities to visit and participate in the botanical and archaeological assessment of what will no doubt remain for me one of the most incredible sites I'll probably ever be able to visit: the Cold Spring ruins in the Sierra Ancha Wilderness in central Arizona. These sites are on National Forest land, but because of the unique skills and resources of the Park Service in preservation and stabilization of archaeological resources we have been making an effort to collaborate with the Forest Service to preserve and protect these unique sites. Difficult to get to and difficult to find, but amazing.

Hematite House

This ruin was the first we visited and was incredible in its own right.

An interior shot at Hematite House of Duane the chief of resources at Tonto working on the stabilization assessment. And then the next day we spent hiking into Cold Spring Canyon and the ruins there. This ruin is the best preserved and most unique ruin I have ever seen. It is three stories tall and built into a crack in the rock.


Can you find the Ruin? Look along the base of the upper cliff face...This is the approach to the ruin and yes, those are cliffs that drop off a couple hundred feet below. The archaeologist that was with us referred to this as the single most defensive site he has ever seen. The photo below is of the ruin front and is what you are looking for in the image above:

The Ruin's front door.

To get inside we carefully went up the logs and gingerly entered the site. The floors are intact which is crazy considering the visitation and even raiding of the site over the years. The lower window is actually the second floor that was built over fill.

This is Roger another NPS archaeologist climbing up to the second floor.

Once on the second floor this is the approach to the third floor. Note the doorway, which actually went into a series of caves below the upper floor. I freaked out a little with my claustrophobia but was able to get some photos of the roof before I had to leave.

You could see the fingerprints in the mortar that the beams were sitting on. This was a well built place. If you went up on top of this roof there was the largest room, which went back into a cave and then took a sharp turn to left. This is the view from that spot.

It was hard to get the right balance because it was so bright outside. And in case you were wondering what was out that window?

Looking directly down along the face of the wall, in the immediate foreground is the constructed portion of the wall. Another view...


And not to worry, I just hung the camera out the opening and started shooting photos looking down. Talk about vertigo... For a bit of perspective, I climbed down and walked away from the site to the cliff edge on the left of the photograph above. It offered a nice perspective and an added, wow.

Can you see the ruin in the photo? All you are looking for is the parapet opening the previous photo was taken from. I'm still a little stunned by the whole experience.

The Garden in fall

Alas, we've finally cut down the cover crops and have gotten our winter garden in and the coop is almost finished and ready for hens. Soon, soon. We're already pulling cucumbers and carrots out slowly and new tomatoes are teasing us along with the cold nights. Still haven't frozen and my fingers are crossed as I leave town tonight...

From Saturday November 13th

Dreaming of the Maze.

Trip Index:
1214 miles round-trip from Tucson to the end of the road in The Maze at the Dollhouse.
6 hours one-way to drive 47 miles from Hite, Utah to The Maze itself.
5 miles of hiking barefoot hiking in 500 foot deep slot canyons, less than 50 meters wide.
I learned how to rockcrawl, or as I think of it now: I can hike with a truck.
Canyonlands is way out there, I mean, WAY out there.
I've woken the last two nights with the feel of warm smooth rock underfoot. My soles appear to have muscle memory.
It is hard to explain what The Maze is...I'm completely at a loss for words.

Here are some pictures and musings from way out there.

Maze Light

River scour, barefoot walk
For reference: the top of the red wall is 375 feet above the riverbed.

Further up canyon in the Maze

From above, looking down in
And yes, those are canyons in every direction.

In the land of standing rocks

The Dollhouse

The Dollhouse sky

Camp at the end of the road, The Dollhouse

The 10/10/10 poem

Sunrise over the river
Dollhouse crack high above
the sinuous tremble of rock
splitting into infinity
the fall of water in
every direction color
endless soft drops of form
of light, of birds calling
ravens cackling, jays shouting
the morning brewing
the light rising
the day beginning.

Downstream to Cataract Canyon, on the Colorado River

Brown Betty Rapids, Cataract Canyon

Overlooking Surprise Valley, the Colorado is barely visible to the left and 1200 feet below.

Drying creek bed

Goodnight Needles, a 100 mile view north to south

Dollhouse Moonrise

Yes, that is the road.
Actually, I only broke a single leaf spring and never scraped.
Did I mention that I love having a truck?

The Jardin grows...

Gosh, procrastination is fun. I need to be studying for my WFR...Here's the progression of the garden through the summer.

For reference here are a couple photos of the yard from February 17th, the first day we visited the house.




The first picture was from the 7th of May.



The second picture is from the 19th of May.



The third picture is from the 17th of June.



The fourth picture is from 1st of July.



The fifth picture is from this morning, August 5th.

The Kitchen Redux

Here's a short run down on the kitchen remodel I've finally finished. Yes, finished. It only took me two and a half months.

Starting with the kitchen and the house when we moved in:

The first step in the process was probably the most enjoyable. Yes, I am still a little boy in that there is never enough destruction of stuff.



Once I got the old countertop and wall yanked out, the next step required me to tear up the flooring. This was challenging in that you had to cut away each piece of flooring from the glue that cinched it to the floor individually and in as gentle a way as you could not to damage the one next to it. Admittedly it is fun to use a Skil saw to cut directly into the floor. The next step was to cut each plank to fit into the spaces I opened up and then ultimately thread them in one at a time. This was my first fail. Always use more glue that you think you need to get the flooring to completely seal onto the floor. I've got the smallest pockets that mean a light depression every time you step. So...lesson learned.



The flooring actually blended fairly well once it was laid down.


The next step was to move the peninsula into place and secure it to the floor a piece at a time. This is what it looked like stripped down but secure.



Once secured into place the process shifted to building the outer part of the peninsula. For this we decided on a product called American Clay but in order to finish the outside of the peninsula we had to first build the guts to support the clay. I settled on using a 3/8" wettable plywood secured to the back of the cabinets as the foundation.




To create a foundation on top of the plywood I used 1/2" hardware cloth secured with staples. This gave a substantial lip to put the first scratch coat on that I mixed up using 2 parts medium grain sand to 1 part cement. To build the curve of the countertop I had to frame out a separate piece that had a gentle curve, with gaps filled in by cloth adobe tape (it holds the best under moist conditions).



After this framework was built I began the process of mixing then applying the scratch coat using hand held trowels. I let the consistency of this coat be a little thick and sludgy so that I didn't have as much slump on the vertical surface. After applying this first coat to a generally smooth surface profile, I took a piece of hardware cloth and snipped it off so that I had a six inch long piece with little ends poking out every half inch. I used that to make the scratch coat. The scratch coat is the surface that the second coat of clay adheres to, so you "scratch" the coat to make it rough so that the texture gives more to hold onto.




Once that was finished we topped the peninsula with a three-quarter inch plywood as a base, followed by a 3/8" cement backer board secured down with screws.



Once the scratch coat was set, we began the process of applying the clay. American Clay is actually recycled marble and clay that is pulverized and turned into a wall coating. You can actually use it for regular walls, but in our case we decided to apply it thicker and give the appearance of a larger clay surface.


The mixing is easy with a paddle mixer for your drill.



And the mixed product is smooth like a milkshake.



Then the application is just a slow process of using an adobe hawk and trowel to slowly smooth it onto the wall. We ultimately used two coats to get the best surface.








During this whole period we had been going back and forth about what countertop to use. We actively considered using recycled douglas fir that had been finished with a blackened ebony finish, but ultimately the price scared us away. We settled on tile. We got the tile and I worked my way through laying them all out and slowly but surely cutting every single piece and laying them out on the countertop.




After they get laid out, then they are affixed with mastik using 3/8" spacers to maintain appropriate grout lines. This process is really time consuming but there's no replacement for that... Ultimately the curve proved to be problematic but in the end fewer pieces was better. I think and approximate curve is just fine rather than a perfect one.




Another angle on the tile work prior to grouting.



Finally, we picked the grout we wanted and after cleaning up, we had a beautiful new kitchen. At one point, I spent a day repainting the kitchen and the color we chose actually helped to bring all the colors and textures together and have made the whole look really beautiful.