|
|
|
|
|
The Assorted Arizona page contains images from Sedona, Williams (Gateway to the Grand Canyon), Lake Havasu (London Bridge), plus Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot Sinagua Pueblos near Phoenix.
Click an image to open a larger version. Use your back button to return to this page.
|
Grand Canyon Assorted Arizona Canyon de Chelly Antelope Canyon
|
Images in this section are in a number of different Galleries on the Photoshelter website. The Banner below leads to the Arizona Collection where a Gallery can be selected.
Direct Links:
Grand Canyon Sedona, Williams and Lake Havasu
Canyon de Chelly & Arizona Sinagua Sites
Antelope Canyon Antelope Canyon Fractal Composites
|
Sedona
Sedona is located in the northern Verde Valley, south of Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon, and to the north of Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot, the Sinagua Pueblo sites on the south and west edges of the Verde Valley, shown further down on this page. Sedona is renowned for the stunning beauty of its Red Rock country, and is almost as well-known for its popularity with the New Age Movement, which came to the Sedona area in 1987 along with Jose Arguelles and Shirley MacLaine for the “Harmonic Convergence”, an exceptional alignment of planets in a Grand Trine which was supposed to cause the Earth to begin slipping out of its “time beam” and go spinning off into space (part of Arguelles’ interpretation of Mayan cosmology). This was the 1980s.
The New Age adherents believe people are drawn to Sedona because of its energy vortexes (vortices). Bell Rock is considered to be one of the major spiritual vortexes in the area, as is Cathedral Rock. The vortexes are said to focus energy, giving people a psychic connection to the earth and their past lives. Rock cairns are placed by New Age adherents at energy vortex locations allowing others to find them.
Sunrise in Sedona Cathedral Rock X0187
Cathedral Rock at sunrise in early January. It was under 20 degrees when I arrived about a half hour before first light, trying to find the perfect location to shoot the sunrise, and I must say that it was a little chilly hanging around waiting for the light and clouds to become perfect.
The area around Sedona was visited by Paleo-Indians as early as 11,500 BC. A Clovis point (fluted percussion-flaked projectile point) discovered at the Honanki cliff dwelling site placed Clovis Culture Paleo-Indians (11,500 BC to 10,000 BC) in the area. From around 9000 BC, Archaic Culture hunter-gatherers lived in the Verde Valley until 300 BC, leaving rock art in the Palatki and Honanki cliff dwelling sites near Sedona. In 650 AD, the Sinagua people came to the Verde Valley. They were known for basketry, pottery and their masonry such as Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot (shown further below) as well as Palatki and Honanki. The Sinagua remained until about 1400 AD, when they moved to the Hopi mesas (Arizona) and the Zuni and other Pueblos in New Mexico. In 1300 AD, while the Sinagua were still in the Verde Valley, the Yavapai came in from the west, and the Apache arrived in about 1450. Some researchers believe that the Yavapai may have been part of the reason the Sinagua left the valley. The Yavapai and Apache were forcibly removed in 1876 to the San Carlos Reservation, where they lived for 25 years. In 1900, Yavapai and Apache returned to the valley, forming a single political unit.
|
Morning in Sedona Cathedral Rock X0202
Cathedral Rock, about 45 minutes after sunrise when the light evened out and hit the landscape. By this time I felt like a popsicle, but it was worth it to get both images of this renowned location.
One of the first residents of Camp Garden (later called Sedona) was Abraham James, who arrived in 1879. James named many of the red rock formations in the area and was instrumental in making Sedona a local tourist attraction. James originally named Bell Rock, Court Rock and Church Rock. Years later, Court Rock and Church Rock became Courthouse Butte and Cathedral Rock, with the names reversed (this was originally Court Rock). The area was renamed for Sedona Schnebly in 1902 (wife of the first postmaster) when the first Post Office was built behind the Schnebly home, as the other three proposed names were deemed too long to fit on a postal cancellation stamp.
|
Bell Rock Sedona AZ X0102
The appropriately named Bell Rock, just outside Oak Creek.
|
Courthouse Butte Sedona AZ X0099
Courthouse Butte is just east of Bell Rock, south of Sedona.
|
New Age practitioners state that the Bell Rock vortex is a portal into the Earth or a gateway to other dimensions.
Sedona can certainly be quite an interesting place, as are many of its residents and visitors.
Sedona served as a primary remote location for western films from the silent era, when Zane Grey’s “The Call of the Canyon” and “Kit Carson” were filmed in Oak Creek Canyon, B-westerns in the 1930s, and more than 40 A-westerns filmed from 1940-1973, starring John Wayne, Robert Mitchum and others.
Zane Grey, who wrote many popular western adventure novels including Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) and The Call of the Canyon (1924) had a cabin on the Mogollon Rim south of the Verde Valley. Zane Grey’s main characters in The Call of the Canyon lived in Oak Creek Canyon, which helped to make Sedona famous.
Cockscomb Butte Sedona AZ X0071
Two balloonists float by Cockscomb Butte just after sunrise on New Year’s Day.
The Cockscomb (locally known as Cockscomb Butte) is a popular hiking and climbing location south of Sedona, and one of the last prominent features in Red Rock Country.
|
Cockscomb Butte Bear Mountain Sedona AZ X0077
A balloonist passes Cockscomb Butte on his way towards Bear Mountain just after sunrise in January.
Bear Mountain, on the right above, is a strenuous five mile hiking trail with two rather steep sections. Hikers have often had to be rescued on this hike, and in 2008 a rescuer was killed by a copter blade.
|
Images in this section are in a number of different Galleries on the Photoshelter website. The Banner below leads to the Arizona Collection where a Gallery can be selected.
Direct Links:
Grand Canyon Sedona, Williams and Lake Havasu
Canyon de Chelly & Arizona Sinagua Sites
Antelope Canyon Antelope Canyon Fractal Composites
|
Pinyon Pine Cathedral Rock Sedona AZ X0120
A distinctive Pinyon (Piñon) pine overlooking the Oak Creek area and Cathedral Rock.
A New Age shrine with crystals and a Damascus knife was on this pinyon pine (images below).
|
Shrine Pinyon Pine Sedona AZ X0122
|
Shrine Pinyon Pine Sedona AZ X0125
|
Detail of the New Age shrine on an old pinyon pine in the Oak Creek area, taken from two angles. The shrine consisted of crystals, Medicine Cards, prayer cards wrapped in a bandana, a small bag which contained semi-precious stones or other small objects, and a knife with a Damascus blade.
|
Shrine Detail Pinyon Pine Sedona AZ X0122
|
Shrine Detail Pinyon Pine Sedona AZ X0125
|
Detail crops of the small bag and knife on the left, and the crystals, Medicine Cards and prayer cards (right).
|
Red Rock Crossing Outbuilding Sedona X0160
An old sandstone outbuilding at Red Rock Crossing, in the Crescent Moon Ranch recreation area.
Red Rock Crossing is where Oak Creek passes under Cathedral Rock, near Red Rock State Park. This area is considered by New Age practitioners to have some of the most powerful vortexes in Sedona.
|
Cottonwood Mill Crescent Moon Ranch X0127
|
Mill Crescent Moon Ranch Sedona X0129
|
The Mill shed and Mill house with its waterwheel at Crescent Moon Ranch recreation area, Red Rock Crossing.
|
Oak Creek Cairns Buddha Beach Sedona X0139
|
Oak Creek Cairns Buddha Beach Sedona X0141
|
Considered to be one of the strongest of the vortex sites in Sedona, this is Buddha Beach, beside Oak Creek and below Cathedral Rock at Red Rock Crossing. New Age practitioners have marked the site with hundreds of stone cairns, as they do at all Sedona vortex locations.
Oak Creek Cairns Buddha Beach Sedona X0140
Cairns marking vortex sites on Buddha Beach, beside Oak Creek at Red Rock Crossing in Sedona.
|
Images in this section are in a number of different Galleries on the Photoshelter website. The Banner below leads to the Arizona Collection where a Gallery can be selected.
Direct Links:
Grand Canyon Sedona, Williams and Lake Havasu
Canyon de Chelly & Arizona Sinagua Sites
Antelope Canyon Antelope Canyon Fractal Composites
Williams, Arizona Gateway to the Grand Canyon
|
Gift Shop Greeters Williams AZ 1778
|
Gift Shop Greeters Williams AZ 1780
|
Statues under the eaves of the Native America Gift Shop in Williams, AZ greet visitors on historic Route 66.
Williams is a small western town on Route 66 south of the Grand Canyon that in 1901 became known as the Gateway to the Grand Canyon when the Santa Fe Railway built a 60 miles spur line to Grand Canyon Village. Named for William Sherley “Old Bill” Williams, one of the early mountain men who worked in the fur trade in the early 1800s and spent time after Rendezvous in the area before returning to Wyoming and other trapping areas.
Dusty Bunch Williams AZ 1787
The “Dusty Bunch” stands guard outside the Dusty Bunch Gallery and Gift Shop in Williams, Arizona.
After the Civil War, sheep and cattle ranchers moved into the valleys, and land speculators bought up the land in what would become Williams, anticipating the construction of the transcontinental railroad, which arrived in 1882. Williams became a center for the railroad, ranching and lumber industries, and was the starting point for tourists to the Grand Canyon, who would travel the 60 miles by buckboard and stagecoach in the early days. Known as a rowdy western town, Williams was filled with saloons, brothels, gambling houses and opium dens. In 1893, the Saginaw Lumber Company opened a large sawmill to harvest millions of board feet of lumber from the newly established Grand Canyon Forest Reserve around Williams, continuing until the Reserve became the Kaibab National Forest in 1934. Route 66, made famous by Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath”, came through Williams in 1926 bringing thousands of travelers from the Midwest on the way to Los Angeles. Williams is still a small western town, but its history as the Gateway to the Grand Canyon still brings in visitors, although Route 66, America’s Main Street or “Mother Road”, has been bypassed by US 40.
|
Wooden Cowboy Dusty Bunch Williams AZ 1784
|
Wooden Cowboy Dusty Bunch Williams AZ 1789
|
Wooden statues in front of the Dusty Bunch Gallery and Gift Shop in Williams, Arizona.
|
Wooden Indian Dusty Bunch Williams AZ 1783
|
Wooden Cowboy Dusty Bunch Williams AZ 1792
|
Images in this section are in a number of different Galleries on the Photoshelter website. The Banner below leads to the Arizona Collection where a Gallery can be selected.
Direct Links:
Grand Canyon Sedona, Williams and Lake Havasu
Canyon de Chelly & Arizona Sinagua Sites
Antelope Canyon Antelope Canyon Fractal Composites
Lake Havasu
Lake Havasu is the reservoir behind Parker Dam on the border between Arizona and California. While it is now well-known for recreational fishing, boating and watersports, when Robert McCulloch established Lake Havasu City as a retirement real estate development in 1964, it was well off the beaten path for most tourists, and to bring people into the area, he decided to buy Old London Bridge when it came up for sale and reassemble it on site as a tourist attraction to bring people into the area. The original 1831 stone was used to clad a new concrete bridge over the Bridgewater Canal.
|
Great-Tailed Grackle Lake Havasu 1803
|
Great-Tailed Grackle Lake Havasu 1826
|
A male Great-Tailed Grackle watches tourists pass by on their way to London Bridge in Lake Havasu City.
While waiting to get reasonably decent light and a fairly clear sky for images of London Bridge, I shot a few of the birds in the trees around the English Village Shoppes, a quaint Tudor-style outdoor mall built at the foot of the bridge which has become a bit run-down over the years. Lake Havasu is way in the middle of nowhere, and it was worth waiting for the light and sky to get decent bridge shots.
|
Great-Tailed Grackle Female Lake Havasu 1904
|
Red-Winged Blackbird Lake Havasu 1832
|
A female Great-Tailed Grackle (left) and a male Red-Winged Blackbird near London Bridge, Lake Havasu.
Red-Winged Blackbird Lake Havasu 1917 M
A 1500 x 1290 portrait of a male Red-Winged Blackbird near the English Village at London Bridge.
|
Red-Winged Blackbird Lake Havasu 1924 M
A male Red-Winged Blackbird with pollen on his beak practices his “Angry Birds” look.
|
Red-Winged Blackbird Lake Havasu 1941c
A male Red-Winged Blackbird is curious about the long black “beak” on my camera.
|
Red-Winged Blackbird Lake Havasu 1947
|
Red-Winged Blackbird Lake Havasu 1942
|
Three classic close portraits of a male Red-Winged Blackbird complete the group of bird shots which were taken at the English Village by London Bridge in Lake Havasu.
Red-Winged Blackbird Lake Havasu 1953
|
London Bridge Lake Havasu 1858
The 1831 London Bridge spanning Bridgewater Canal between Lake Havasu City and Pittsburgh Point. It is a reconstruction of the second stone London Bridge, not the bridge from the medieval nursery rhyme.
London Bridge of nursery rhyme fame was built by Peter of Colechurch between 1176 and 1209 to replace the last of a succession of earlier timber bridges, commissioned by King Henry II as penance for inadvertently having Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury murdered in 1170 when four of his knights misinterpreted Henry’s words regarding Becket excommunicating three bishops who crowned Henry in York, usurping the Archbishop of Canterbury’s coronation rights. The medieval stone bridge was built with a chapel at its center dedicated to Becket as a martyr, a drawbridge, and numerous buildings on plots licensed by King John to recoup some of the enormous costs of the bridge. It was overloaded by the weight of the buildings, and constantly had to be repaired, which was the source of the rhyme “London Bridge is Falling Down”. The Old Bridge had two defensive gatehouses. The Southwark Gatehouse was often decorated with severed heads of traitors, as can be seen in detail from the Panorama of London by Claes van Visscher (1616, below).
|
Visscher London Panorama 1616 London Bridge
Detail from the right center of a hand-colored Victorian copy of Claes van Visscher’s Panorama of London. Note the severed heads spiked on the Southwark Gate in the lower right center and the density of the buildings. The onion-domed palace beyond the gap in the center was Nonsuch House, the first prefabricated building.
Samuel Buck London Bridge 1749
A section from Plate 5 of Buck’s Panorama of London, Old Street Church to the Tower of London (1749). They were copper plates from which prints were made. As you can see, the buildings on Old London Bridge were rebuilt in a later style between the early 1600s and the mid 1700s as shown in these two panoramas.
In 1758-62 all houses and shops on the bridge were demolished by Act of Parliament, and the two center arches were replaced by a single wider span to facilitate navigation on the river. Demolishing the buildings did little to preserve the deteriorating 600 year old bridge, whose wooden ‘starlings’ supporting the piers were failing, causing the parapets to buckle. In 1799 a competition was won by John Rennie with a five arch stone bridge that was built 100 feet upstream of the medieval London Bridge beginning in 1824.
“New” London Bridge, completed in 1831, was 928 feet long and 49 feet wide (the medieval bridge was 26 feet wide). It was built from Haytor granite and was the busiest and most congested spot in London. In 1896 it was widened by 13 feet using granite corbels, but the bridge was sinking into the Thames by one inch every eight years. The east side had sunk nearly four inches lower than the west side by 1924, and it became apparent that the bridge would have to be replaced.
In 1967, the City of London put London Bridge up for sale, and Robert McCulloch bought it in 1968 for $2.46 million. The bridge was disassembled and each block was numbered for reassembly, then the bridge was shipped via the Panama Canal and then trucked for reassembly at Lake Havasu City.
|
London Bridge Lake Havasu 1902
John Rennie’s 1831 London Bridge reconstruction at Lake Havasu City. Note the granite corbels below the parapet, which were used to widen the bridge in 1896. The Rennie bridge stones were used to clad the concrete structure built between Lake Havasu City and Pittsburgh Point peninsula. After completing the bridge in 1971, Bridgewater Canal was dredged below the bridge and flooded.
|
Images in this section are in a number of different Galleries on the Photoshelter website. The Banner below leads to the Arizona Collection where a Gallery can be selected.
Direct Links:
Grand Canyon Sedona, Williams and Lake Havasu
Canyon de Chelly & Arizona Sinagua Sites
Antelope Canyon Antelope Canyon Fractal Composites
|
Arizona Sinagua Sites
Montezuma Castle
The Sinagua people of Arizona (the name means “without water”) built cliff dwellings in the Verde Valley near Prescott, AZ. The most spectacular of these is called Montezuma Castle. Neither a Castle nor having anything to do with Montezuma or the Aztec Empire, the structure was misnamed by European Americans who found the cliff dwelling in the 1860s. The Sinagua ‘high rise’ was built into a hollowed-out alcove in the limestone cliffs between 1100 and 1425 AD. Montezuma Castle is one of the best-preserved cliff dwellings in North America, primarily because it has had limited disturbance since it was abandoned (having been protected by the Hopi). It was seen in 1583 and 1598 by two Spanish expeditions which were looking for mining opportunities, and was later “discovered” by the miners in the 1860s, who gave it its colorful but inaccurate name because at the time, many people thought that the Southwest had been colonized by the Aztecs or Toltecs from the South. Montezuma Castle has been closed to the public since 1951 due to damage caused by tens of thousands of visitors.
|
Montezuma Castle X0087 (876 KB)
Montezuma Castle is one of the finest examples of prehistoric architecture in the Southwest, built into a hollowed-out alcove in the limestone cliffs from 1100 AD by the Southern Sinagua, who lived in central Arizona between 500 and 1425 AD.
|
Montezuma Castle X0091 (909 KB)
The ‘high-rise apartment’ dwelling is five stories and contains over 20 rooms. It is thought to have housed about 50 people. It overlooks the fertile fields which were irrigated by the systems left in place by the previous Hohokam residents of the valley.
|
Montezuma Castle X0089 (771 KB)
The only way up into the cliff dwelling was via ladders or by climbing the cliff, which provided the inhabitants with a natural defense against enemy tribes. The structure is a composite of a rear section (the older of the two sections, three stories tall), and a front section which is three stories tall, the third story of which is a single front room in front of the lowest central room of the rear section. The total complex is five stories tall, with 21 rooms including the three cavates (hollowed-out cave-rooms), plus a Plaza and a Parapet in the rear section.
|
Montezuma Castle X0093 (629 KB)
There are some cavates (hollowed out rooms) in the cliff face below the main dwelling (two large ones are at right center).
|
Montezuma Castle X0096 (723 KB)
Montezuma Castle was one of the four original National Monuments designated by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.
|
Tuzigoot
The Sinagua people who farmed the Verde Valley 20 miles northwest of Montezuma Castle built a multi-story Pueblo atop a limestone spine near the Verde River. Tuzigoot is Apache for ‘Crooked Water’, referring to the oxbow of Peck’s Lake, a cutoff meander of the Verde River. The two to three story pueblo had 110 rooms, the first of which was built in about 1000 AD.
|
Tuzigoot Sinagua Pueblo X0210 (822 KB)
The North Central rooms of Tuzigoot overlooked by the Citadel (tower room).
200 pottery vessels were recovered from the ruins, which were excavated between 1933 and 1934 by Louis Caywood and Edward Spicer from the University of Arizona with funding from the CWA and WPA, two federal work projects during the Great Depression. The pottery was similar to Jeddito black-on-yellow from the Hopi Pueblo IV period, and it was reassembled over a two year period and called Tuzigoot Ware. Many pieces and other artifacts are displayed in the museum.
|
Tuzigoot Sinagua Pueblo X0211 (697 KB)
A firewall protecting a cooking area in one of the North Central rooms at Tuzigoot. The Citadel (the tallest part of the structure at top left) was used as a watchtower and a public space. It was restored by the National Park Service, and offers a spectacular view.
An estimated 250 inhabitants lived in Tuzigoot. The standard of living provided by the lush marshlands and the proximity to the river allowed excellent hunting and farming, but even with the abundance of resources, life expectancy was 40 years and infant mortality was high. Over 170 infant burials were unearthed during the excavations, buried beneath floors of the rooms.
|
Tuzigoot Sinagua Pueblo X0213 (644 KB)
North Central rooms and the Tuzigoot Citadel (tower room).
The walls, when originally reconstructed, were built with mortar mix containing cement as was often done in the early 20th c., but as was pointed out by Dean Cummings of the Advisory Committee, the erosion patterns would be different, the clay pointing would crack, and the walls would have to be rebuilt. His predictions came true... when the NPS took over they had to completely rebuild the walls.
|
Tuzigoot Sinagua Pueblo X0222 (617 KB)
A metate (a mealing stone for grinding corn) stands within an upper level room in the North Central block of Tuzigoot.
In July 1939, President Roosevelt established Tuzigoot as the 27th National Monument under the National Park Service. The rebuilding of the walls began nearly immediately, as each rain caused cave-ins which revealed bones of children. The early superintendent actually had one covered with a glass plate and exposed the burial as an exhibit for the visitors.
|
Tuzigoot Metate Citadel X0217 (693 KB)
Metate (mealing stone) within a Central room (detail at right). The walls are limestone and river rock, with adobe mortar.
|
Tuzigoot Metate Walls X0216c (700 KB)
Detail of the Metate in the Central room. The exterior mortar surfaces were hardened with a linseed oil mixture.
|
Tuzigoot Metate X0214 (766 KB)
Another Metate (mealing stone) with a Mano (hand-held grinding stone) used to grind corn placed in the Metate.
|
Tuzigoot Metate X0214c (696 KB)
Detail of the Metate and Mano. A repetitive horizontal grinding motion was used to create corn meal.
|
Tuzigoot Sinagua Pueblo X0218 (681 KB)
Southern rooms as viewed from atop the Citadel, with a view of Mingus Mountain to the West (far right), the Tavasci Marsh, and the Verde Valley to the Southwest.
|
Tuzigoot Sinagua Pueblo X0220 (765 KB)
The most dramatic angle of the Southern rooms at Tuzigoot from atop the Citadel (tower room).
The Sinagua left Tuzigoot in about 1400 AD. Several Hopi clans trace their ancestry to the Southern Sinagua from the Verde Valley, and believe they left the valley for religious reasons.
|
Images in this section are in a number of different Galleries on the Photoshelter website. The Banner below leads to the Arizona Collection where a Gallery can be selected.
Direct Links:
Grand Canyon Sedona, Williams and Lake Havasu
Canyon de Chelly & Arizona Sinagua Sites
Antelope Canyon Antelope Canyon Fractal Composites
|
Click the Display Composite above to visit the Grand Canyon page.
|
Click the Display Composite above to visit the Canyon de Chelly page.
|
Click the Display Composite above to visit the Antelope Canyon page.
|
Click the Display Composite above to return to the Southwest Section Index page.
|
|
|
|
|
|