Montezuma Castle and Montezuma Well

Monday, April 13, 2015

After we got parked and set up, we decided to go see Montezuma Castle & Montezuma Well.

We saw both the castle and well today.  We will go to Tuzigoot in a few days.  

Below is Montezuma Castle.

They figure Montezuma Castle is about 800 years old. We were not allowed any closer.

If we  remember correctly, this water was called Beaver Creek.  Looks more like a river to us.

As we were headed to Montezuma Well we could look back and see these ponds along Beaver Creek.

As we were walking to the well I saw these pretty little flowers.  Actually this particular plant is around in a lot of places.  I love spring with all the flowers blooming.

We also saw this bush.  It is a desert holly.  The leaves look just like regular holly only smaller.  The leaves were probably only about 1" long.  Cool.  Desert plants seem to have much smaller leaves.

This lizard came onto the walkway and just stared at me.  Tic got a good picture.  Look how long his toes are!!!  Not sure what kind of lizard it is.

This well is called an oasis in the desert.  It is spring fed and produces about 1.5 million gallons of water a day.  The water is 74 degrees year round.  This pond is home to species not found anywhere else.  If you look closely at the far side you can see 2 cliff dwellings.  The water drains from this pond through a tunnel under the water.

Here is a closeup of the 2 cliff dwellings.

The rocks here had interesting patterns...dark, light, dark, light.  These are some big boulders that rolled down almost to the pond.

We could walk down to the outlet.  The water was flowing quickly.

The water flows through some irrigation canals.  Here the canal runs along the path down to the outlet from the pond.  Also notice the stairs at the top of the path.

I'm sitting in shade waiting for Tic.  It was hot today.  After this we headed home.