#sinagua

Montezuma Castle National Monument, 1987

Tuzigoot National Monument, built by the Sinagua people between 1125 and 1400.

Scenes from a visit to Montezuma Well in central Arizona this past Saturday, a location I’ve always been a little curious about but to my discredit had never taken the time to visit. It’s located quite near to Montezuma Castle National Monument, and is administered by the monument, but has no entrance fee and is much more lightly visited. And, as anyone who’s visited has rightly told me, is absolutely worth the stop. The well is a fascinating limestone sinkhole fed by an arsenic-laden warm spring, so distinct from surrounding waterways that it has several endemic species of plants, small water creatures, and possibly a turtle. Its outlet is a narrow underground channel which pours out into nearby Beaver Creek, which carries it right past Montezuma Castle on its way to the Verde River.

Like the Castle, the Well also has a number of Sinagua buildings both above and below its rim, including cliff dwellings and even multiple rooms built into a natural cave close to the water’s surface. Their construction was very similar to the dwellings at Walnut Canyon up by Flagstaff, to whom their builders were culturally related. The Hopi claim ancestry to these people, and the Yavapai hold the Well to be their sacred Emergence Place, where their ancestors came up from the previous world.

As we explored we were entertained by the reverberating quacks of a small family of coots on the water’s surface, some of the many waterfowl drawn to the Well in all seasons for its constant temperature of 74F. The park ranger stationed at the main overlook told us that in the winter the water can be populated by hundreds of birds in the warm mist while all around is chill and leafless. Below the rim we were treated to sightings of the resident Townsend’s Big-Eared Bat, now the only occupants of the dark rooms inside the caves.