Dispatches From the Parks: Tuzigoot National Monument & Montzuma Castle National Monument
Sedona is one of the most popular destinations in Arizona. Its red rock buttes, caves, and other stunning formations are world renowned, and the area has top class hiking, biking and other outdoor recreation. I was able to visit this beautiful area in March. My travels mostly revolve around visits to national park sites so while the town of Sedona only has Forest Service land, the surrounding area has two fascinating national park sites that preserve the Sinagua culture.
The first park I visited on my trip to the Sedona area was Tuzigoot National Monument. Tuzigoot is located in the Verde River Valley, just downhill from Sedona. While the red rock landscape is not visible here you do get a very diverse area. Snow capped mountains can be seen in the distance, desert fills up most of the remaining area but Tuzigoot itself also sits beside the Verde River and a rather sizable marsh that lights up the immediate area with a stark green color. Tuzigoot preserves a hilltop community built by the Sinagua people, who inhabited the region around 1400 years ago.
I arrived here through the park’s only entrance that leads you straight to the visitor center complex. It’s a beautiful area with a visitor center that feels dated, but of a piece with this historical space. The building is a few flights of stairs from the parking lot so be prepared to walk, but if you want to take a breather before the trek there is a nice picnic area that is shaded from the desert atmosphere. I did just that right before leaving the park and got to go bird watching at the same time with the park’s diverse set of species. The visitor center has some pretty detailed displays on Sinagua culture as well as artifacts that you can surprisingly get really close to. Here is also where you can pay the park’s entrance fee and stock up on water before you go further up the hill to where the Sinagua compound is.
Your first look up the hill can be quite deceptive as the Sinagua structure on top of it looks rather small and riddled with other tourists. I visited the park in the late morning as I did a hike beforehand in Sedona so this might not have been the ideal time to visit. However, as you begin to walk up the hill and get closer to the rock that composes these structures you begin to admire the area much more. The structure is built seamlessly into the hillside, which makes for a pleasing, natural style. The views from up high on the hilltop also gives you a much better look at the variety of environments here.
In order to escape the crowds, though, I continued onto the Tavasci Marsh Overlook Trail, which still gives great views of the Sinagua structures but takes you closer to the marshes. The trail begins on the opposite side of the visitor center and is about twice as long as the trail to the Sinagua structures. If you are into birding this is a great place to do it as I heard so much birdsong during my brief time on the trail.
With one more park site to hit for the day, my time at Tuzigoot had to come to an end. My next stop was just a quick hop onto the highway away. Montezuma Castle National Monument preserves not one, but two sites that highlight the styles of cliff dwellings that the Sinagua people inhabited. The most popular district of the park, Montezuma Castle, was my first stop. Traffic to this park was quite intense, but there is a lot of parking so you should be able to get a spot even if you have to circle around a few times. The parking lot is actually a nice spot to have lunch or spend some time looking around as it’s located right next to Beaver Creek. The visitor center guards the rest of the park so you have to enter there if you want to continue.
The Montezuma Castle site is a quite popular area so the visitor center is a bit cramped for the amount of people going through. That being said, there is still a lot to see within it. There’s an exhibit on the Sinagua culture and another one about Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation history in the surrounding area (as president he preserved this park as a national monument). As an admirer of Roosevelt, it was interesting to see the impact he had on Arizona. The visitor center’s gift shop is also rather sizable. The doors at the back of the visitor center lead you to the park’s main event, a walkway that leads to the castle.
The castle is just a small walk from the visitor center and this stunning structure is built right into the cliffside. It’s a marvel how well this area is preserved, and the National Park Service does a great job of interpreting the area with a park ranger or volunteer almost always nearby the main viewpoint of the castle. From them you will learn that this is where up to fifty people lived, using ladders to access this oddly placed structure. I visited many places on my spring break trip, from the mountainous town of Flagstaff to the baking heat of Phoenix, and this view of the castle was easily one of the most memorable.
To access the park’s second and more remote site, you have to take another short drive by the highway. Montezuma Well is a natural spring that is home to even more Sinagua structures. These cliff dwellings are of similar design to the ones that can be found at Walnut Canyon National Monument, north of here in Flagstaff. Just like the Montezuma Castle site it’s visually stunning here. The crowds lessen and you get a much quieter experience. The main highlight of this site is a trail that leads you around the rim of the well and also leads you into the well itself. The hike is short, maybe a mile long at most, but the National Park Service stations a ranger at the beginning of the trail to warn you of the many hazards on the way (it’s an area that gets hot and bees tend to frequent the area). Don’t let that alarm you, though, as I had a lot of fun with the trail. It’s great to see the cliff dwellings in this more low level environment, and there is once again a lot of bird life once you adventure into the well (the sound of the red winged blackbird was hard to miss).
The Sedona area’s two national park sites are a great day trip diversion from the more touristy elements of Sedona proper. It’s amazing to see the architecture that the Singua people were able to build so long ago.
