PAUC Western Sedona Ride

This ride is just southwest of Sedona. It is basically the same as the “Show Me” ride with 2 differences. 1. We will not be taking the Power Road. 2. We will go to the Palatki Ruins for a guided tour (I have reservations)and the Honanki Ruins for a self guided tour.
This is one of the most beautiful rides ever! We will see picture perfect scenes of the red rock formations and ancient Indian ruins and pictographs so make sure to bring your camera. The difficulty ranges from easy to moderate with some hills, whoopti doos and fun stuff.

Both Indian ruin sites involve a short hike. (If you aren’t interested in the hike to see the ruins, you can take a nap and look at the photos when the hikers return. )

We will stop for lunch at the Palatki Indian ruins where there is a restroom and shaded picnic tables. Our tour begins at 12:15 sharp but we should have time to use the facilities and eat before the tour. The National Forest Service requires a Senior Pass, Annual pass or a Sedona day pass ($5) all of which work for both Indian ruin sites. One pass per vehicle needs to be displayed on your dash in the parking lot or hanging from your rear-view mirror signature side up. A pass can be purchased at the site if necessary. (No one has ever checked the vehicle passes or asked us to pay but just in case……) Forest rangers will tell you about the sites.

Palatki is actually two sites. One is the actual ruins of the Sinaqua Cliff Dwelling and the other is over 1,000 petroglyphs and pictographs carved and painted into the rocks and formations by prehistoric natives that occupied the area during various times in ancient history. The Palatki Ruins are hidden behind some trees and if you didn’t know the dwelling was there, it would be easy to miss. Palatki is a Hopi Indian word meaning “red house”. The cliff dwelling was built by the Sinaqua Indians (Spanish for “without water”) about 1150 and was mysteriously abandoned at about 1300. It’s interesting to note that the Sinaquas also built Montezuma Castle, the cliff dwelling ruins about 50 miles east of this site near Camp Verde, Arizona. It’s plausible that the Sinaquas were eliminated by other enemy tribes in the area or vacated this area due to a lengthy drought adversely affecting their ability to grow necessary crops.

After lunch and the Palatki Ruins tour, we will head over to the Honanki Ruins about 4 miles away. This will be a self guided tour.

The Honanki (Hopi for Bear House) Ruins sit at the base of Loy Butte on the sheltered west-facing cliffs. They are among the largest ancient population sites in the Verde Valley, occupied between AD 1130-1280. The site originally contained about 60 rooms. The cave is rich with pictographs; some date back to 2000 BC, long before the the cliff dwellings. Most of the pictographs are from the Sinagua and date to AD 900-1300.

Staging area: Take I-17 north to Hwy 260. Head west to 89A. On 89A go north approximately 1 mile north of the Page springs turnoff to FS 525 on the left. There is a kiosk at the staging area about a mile from 89A on the left side of the road. I drive a white motorhome pulling a green Honda Talon.

We will have a quick drivers meeting and review the rotation.

There will be plenty of pink jeeps and people out exploring in their ATV rentals so we will need to be courteous drivers and be aware of any on coming traffic. We will meet at 8:15 and leave the staging area at 8:30 so that we won’t be late arriving at Palatki. (I will be driving up the day before to camp and you are welcome to camp as well.)

Bring a camera, lunch, snacks and plenty of water.

I can only bring 10 people due to the size of the cliff dwelling ledge at Palatki. The first 10 people (not 10 buggies) to notify me via text 623-692-5908 will be on the ride list.