Every once in a while you gotta do a challenging hike. Sure make it be a journey with a destination too. Something that will make it worth it to the people you may have underplayed the elevation gain and steepness factor to. With my brother in town, we needed a good impresser that only forgotten Arizona could offer, so Yellowsub, Silversides, and I took him with to hike Devil's Chasm Ruins off the Sierra Ancha's. This was actually only two miles away from where I had hiked for the fall color changes, but we had to start at the bottom and hike 750ft up, 200ft shy from the top (total hiking elevation gain is 2489 feet 8|). The ruins were inhabitted in 1280AD by the Salado Indians and much of them still stands.
The trail is supposed to be around 4 miles round trip, but part of that is at least a 45 degree angle, up slippery black mud and rolling scree rock.
A month earlier and the colors would still be in the trees, but we settled for them under feet as we hiked along the recent rains in the form of a creek. The water was flowing well in some spots, offering a challenge when the canyon got narrow. Midway up, ice on the trail added to the challenge.
We saw a couple groups of Javalina on the way in, and two fat turkeys and two deer on the trail. The trail was pretty well defined by game travel early on. A rock blocked the entire canyon at one point but a rope aided our climb up and around. Nearer the ruins, guesswork came into play as we chose the best route and then as we blazed almost straight up the easiest way we could find.
The ruins lived up to the photos I had seen, the main one looking almost like an ark in the sky. The tired fell away from us as we reached the rock walls and began carefully exploring around. We found at least three almost in tact grain grinding rocks within the rooms. Apparently the main section had at least 12 rooms and at least three stories. More structures could be seen underneath that had given in to time and lay a strew. We hiked along the ledge and found at least 4 more partially standing dwellings that also overlooked the valley below. It is hard to believe the Indians chose this area to make their homes. We eventually hiked back down to make sure we didn't run out of daylight on the hill. Sometimes the hike down was harder as we tried to control our descent down the slippery slope. We did make it back considerably faster though and we timed the trip at about 6hrs all together.

She apparently thought she was in the clear since it was after Thanksgiving




Bottleneck




Old cactus


Suck it up


Old tree


Sky Boat?


Kind of a high hike


Ruins from below


Explorer Jonathan


Water falling from the rim top was working on this icicle display


The view when you woke up at night and stepped outside to take a leak




Makin some cornmeal


Where the supports used to enter for the next floor

Where's explorer Jonathan going?


Ah


Another set




Hiking back down the easy part ;)

wow.. those are amazing pictures.. beautiful!

great pictures

WOW!! Some amazing pics, thanks for sharing