This site will cover a variety of my hobbies, most of which relate to the desert southwest of the USA.
Archaeology
I was the hike/field trip director for the Phoenix Chapter of the Arizona Archaeological Society (AAS), but I no longer lead Society sponsored trips.
For liability and insurance reasons AAS Sponsored field trips are only open to AAS members, but since I now just organized trips among friends
AAS membership is not required to go on on of my trips.
AAS Sponsored trips
| January 27, 2008 | AAS State Meeting hike. In conjunction with the AAS State Meeting in Phoenix four hearty folks including my wife, Nancy, hiked with your fearless leader through the rain to the petroglyphs in Hieroglyphic Canyon in the Superstition Mountains. The Weather Service was predicting periodic showers in the morning, but a few of us were willing to take a chance on going, hoping there might be breaks in the rain. We started in a light drizzle which kept up the whole time, getting somewhat heavier toward the end of our hike. The canyon is about 30 miles east of Phoenix on the southern boundary of the Superstition Mountains Wilderness area. The 1.5 mile trail ascends gradually a total of about 600' to the canyon where abundant petroglyphs may be seen. The trail is rocky, but otherwise this is an easy hike. Some pictures of the petroglyphs and taken along the trail during a previous visit on a clear day can be seen by clicking here. |
| November 10-11, 2007 | Geoglyphs
near the Colorado River. Geoglyphs (also known as intaglios) are large (tens to hundreds of feet in size) figures created on the landscape. In our region these typically occur in areas of desert pavement, and were formed by scraping away the top layer of rocks that form the "pavement". In some cases rocks of a different color may be used to form the figure. The most well known are the Blythe Intaglios and the Bouse Fisherman. Both of these are fenced for protection and have BLM descriptive signs and good roads or trails leading to them. We visited the Bouse Fisherman, the Blythe Intaglios and then go to a petroglyph site a few miles north of the main intaglio site. Near the intaglios we were able to find numerous lithic artifacts. You can find out more about these intaglios by clicking here. A total of seven (including me) people attended the trip; five of us camped overnight about a mile further west on the road leading to the intaglios. Pictures from the trip may be found here. |
| January 14th and 15th 2006 | Sears Point: A Patayan site on the Gila River west of Gila Bend |
| November
11, 2006. |
Rogers Canyon Cliff Dwellings After postponements because of weather the hike finally took place on November 11 under beautiful skys and comfortable temperatures. Seven of us made the 8 mile round trip to the cliff dwellings with little difficulty. Some pictures from that trip may be found here. |
| January 14, 2007 | Eagletail Mountains Petroglyphs. As luck would have it, this hike took place on the coldest day in Phoenix in several years, but once we got warmed from exercise it was really quite pleasant. We had 10 people, many of whom had been there before. In addition to the petroglyphs we found some bedrock mortars and a couple of pot sherds. The sherds were found by a part of the group that decided to take a shorter, cross-country route to the site instead of following the trail the whole way. I have posted a map showing the location of the Eagletail Mountains, and pictures from the trip can be seen here. |
| February 4,2007 | Azatlan---Scott Wood, archaeologist for the Tonto National Forest led this trip with 22 members of the Phoenix and Desert Foothills chapters of AAS. Azatlan is the site of a large pithouse village near the end of Rio Verde road at the Verde River. Other features at the site include canals, 4 ball courts, numerous roasting pits, and over 100 trash mounds. The site had a large Pre-Classic population, but was essentially uninhabited during the Classic Period. Scott's narrative was interesting and informative as usual. This site is easily accessed. |
Other Archaeology Related Outings (Not AAS sponsored)
| February 4, 2006 | Old house and
lost mine in the
Sierra Estrellas From
the information
I found on that website, it is not clear exactly where the mine and its
associated
house are. After
some searching, I have
found the house and the trail to it, so I can now lead us to the house
and we
can then search for the well and mineshaft that are said to be near the
old
house. A
high-clearance vehicle is
needed to get to the start of the trail to the old house. (4-wheel drive is helpful,
but probably not
necessary.)Pictures
from my first trip to
the old house are here. My second hike into the mine area. I took four hiking and archeology friends in to see the house and look for the old mine and the well. We found the well and old mine in short order. Interestingly there was very little in the way of mine tailings to be found. Perhaps the miners tossed the tailings into the bed of the ravine, and they have since been washed away. Modern bolts and and a rail (for mining cars) were found, testifying to fairly recent mining activity here; could those more recent tailings have also been washed away by now? I really don't know; there seem to be some inconsistencies here. |
| April 11, 2009 | I lead a group of about 6 people to the Vulture obsidian site northwest of Phoenix. Trace element analysis has shown that obsidian from this site made its way to the Phoenix Valley at certain times in prehistory. (Archaeology Southwest, Vol.22 #4, 2008) Obsidian in this area is found in the form of nodules (Apache Tears), and we were able to find many nodules that showed signs of having been worked by man. We also found one rectangular rock alignment that is probably the remains of a structure of unknown age. A few photos from the trip can be seen here. |
General hiking, camping and mountain biking
| March 17-22, 2005 | Death Valley: photos from the year of great wildflowers |
| April 14-20, 2006 | Death Valley: 4-Wheeling, Camping, Hiking, and Archaeology. |
| November 12-19,2006 | Death Valley:
4-Wheeling, Camping, Hiking, and Archaeology I was back in the Death Valley area again, and this time my number one goal was to climb Telescope Peak. There is a good trail to the top that is about 7 miles long with a 3,000 foot elevation gain, ending at the peak at an elevation of 11,048'. My friend Rich Nichols came out from Philadelphia to go on this trip with me. Rich and I have been going on camping trips together since graduate school, and still are able to get together every few years. We were really lucky on weather for the Telescope hike; by this time of year it is common for the trail to be covered by ice and snow, but there had been little snow so far and we encountered only a few very small patches of ice on the trail that we could easily step around. The night before the hike we camped at the trailhead in the Mahogany Flat campground. Here again we were lucky on weather. We wanted to camp at the trailhead in order to get an early start on the hike and to acclimatize somewhat to the altitude. The downside of camping there was that we were likely to have a very cold night at 8,000'. When we went to bed it was 33°, and we were preparing for a cold night. To my surprise, the temperature actually went up during the night to about 36° and stayed at about that temperature all night long. Rich was recovering from a sprained ankle, so we hiked at a slow pace to ease the hardship on his ankle. Even so, we got to the summit by about 11:15. The views on the trail and at the summit are really amazing; looking steeply down there are the deep grabens of Death Valley and Panamint Valley on either side, and there are mountain ranges and valleys extending to the horizon in all directions with the Sierra Nevada in the west. After accomplishing a major goal for the trip we then did some exploring of old mining areas (Minnietta Mine and Darwin areas) before going to another hiking spot. We chose another spot that is fairly centrally located int the Park: Marble Canyon. This was an appealing area for us because of the narrow canyon with polished bedrock walls and because of the petroglyphs that can be found in this region. We were not disappointed! Pictures can be seen here: Telescope Peak Mining areas Marble Canyon Variety |
| March 20-28, 2007 | Death Valley region again. 4-Wheeling, Camping, and Hiking |
| April 24-27, 2007 | Western deserts of Arizona. 4-Wheeling and Camping |
| Pictures from hikes and mountain bike rides in and near Phoenix (Click on pictures to see more photos.) |  The Dixie Mine on the eastern slopes of the McDowell Mtns. |
 I find cross-country hiking fairly easy in the North Maricopa Mountains. |
Geology
I recently took another geology class taught by Thomas Williams for the University of California (Berkeley) Extension department. I have found Tom's courses to be good way to learn geology while having fun in interesting places and meeting other people who enjoy science and the outdoors. This class was at Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California. I have a few of my pictures here.
Last update 6/14/2009
The website author may be contacted by emailing
tbharvey(the "at" symbol)att.net
