Today we drove about a half hour to the V-V (aka V bar V) Petroglyph site. It's an old ranch that contained a large petroglyph panel that the Forest Service traded some land for to preserve it as a heritage site. The image below is the outside of the fireplace of the old ranch house.

There are some interesting interpretations of the glyphs: one of the more interesting and probable is a solar calendar for a few of the glyphs. The panel faces west and has a couple of large stones dislodged high above that cast a shadow when the sun rises over the cliff top (around mid-day).

The shadows swing left and right (north and south) as the seasons change - and there are several glyphs that the shadows (and the shaft of light in between the two shadows) intersect at very important times in the agricultural cycle. If we were there this Wednesday or Thursday (the spring equinox) around noon we would see the shaft of light intersect the center of some concentric circles.

There is a "step ladder" glyph (top in the image above) that marks other important times like the beginning of monsoon season (in late July and August) - super important for dry land farming of corn, beans and squash.

The interpreter at V-V said that the glyphs were probably a product of the occupants of a couple of pueblos a half mile to the east. We had heard about "Sacred Mountain" on a small mesa top just down the road - so we went there and hiked up.

It was only a 0.6 mile trail up there (and a 225' climb) and we really enjoyed the exercise (although a few sections of the trail were steep).

The mesa top is covered with ruins - it looked to us like three room blocks of 20+ rooms each. Plus it looks like there was a wall all around the mesa top enclosing the room blocks and a central plaza.

An amazing aspect is that we find water in the strangest places - we guess this is a Spring phenomenon.

Apparently there is a "ball court" somewhere around the bottom of the butte (but we completely forgot to look for it when we were on top). One of the white dots in the left center of the image below is our Yukon (you may have to click on the image to enlarging it enough to see the white dot).

Tomorrow we will probably head over the mountain (through Jerome) to Prescott and check it out. Apparently it has a very large retirement community - we'll see.