Back Road Adventure

BACK ROAD ADVENTURE In the Middle of Nowhere, Palatki's Cliff Dwellings Seem Snatched from a John Ford Western

Something is wrong here. Voices are rising from the trail far, far below me. But they sound as if they are two feet away.

I swear this canyon has some magic to it, the way it jiggers with time and space and sound. What's real and what's imagined is determined by the whims of a sly little rabbit winking over the rim of a black top hat.Right now I hear two women arguing. Not shouting exactly, but talking loud enough and fast enough to lose some spit. It's a business problem, real estate. I gather the two are partners, and they have come to this thrilling canyon to hash out some moneymaking venture that could well tilt against them.

I've never understood the belief that you can better analyze a city problem from the middle of nowhere. By the time you return to town the dilemma is back, big as ever, and the rabbit in the hat is laughing like crazy. Got 'em again.

I continue up the trail, away from the bickerers, toward an ancient real estate development called Palatki. When I heard about this place, I figured getting here would require strenuous effort. After all, I was traveling back in time a good 700 years. But the opposite was true.

From Sedona I drove three and a half miles southwest on State Route 89A to a righthand turn onto Dry Creek Road. After a couple of miles, I hung a left at the fork onto Forest Service Road 152C and bumped onto a reasonably accommodating stretch of dirt that ran for another four miles to FR 525.

Then it was a quick right onto FR 795 straight into the big half-moon-shaped cliffs above Red Canyon Ranch. The view at the end of the road was majestic, exciting.

The falling sun was just beginning to explode onto the rock walls, creating an impossibly colorful video that changed from moment to moment, a finely choreographed dance of light. It was like driving into a Hollywood director's screening room to watch the greatest movie ever made.

The ancient Indians who lived here were probably touched by wonder, too. Archaeologists say that about 100 people of the southern Sinagua tradition occupied this canyon between A.D. 1100 and A.D. 1300. They left behind two pueblos which are among the largest cliff dwellings in the red rocks area.

The site first came to the attention of researchers in 1895. A scientist named Jesse Walter Fewkes traveled here from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., to investigate Hopi migration traditions. He named the site Palatki, a Hopi word meaning "red house."

The short trail I'm walking ends at the western cliff and the series of dark sheltering caves and crannies along its base. What I'm looking at is what Fewkes saw, and the Sinagua, too, and the people archaeologists believe were here as early as 3000 B.C.

Not much has changed at this place since the invention of the VCR, the telephone, gunpowder, or the wheel.

The walls are crammed with rock art, pictographs, mostly, of what may be curling snakes, running deer, slashing lightning, and human forms.

The Forest Service keeps an information box and a sign-in sheet at the trailhead. The literature describes the pictographs as "messages from the past, waiting for the day when scientists will be able to interpret them for us."

I'm not holding my breath. Palatki asks you only to wonder, not to know. Wonder is better.

The western pueblo, which is closed to the public - for both their sakes contains a small room with a raised bench. Above its juniper-bark roof is another room, evidence that additional space was needed toaccommodate a growing pop-ulation.

Down below, a million miles away, is the canyon floor, a pasture of brittle grass and pan-cake cactuses. It wasn't so barren when Charles Willard worked this ranch back in the 1920s. He developed ingenious techniques to dry farm fruit trees on the property. The windswept pasture was stud-ded with them back then.

I pass by the remnants of Willard's stone house on the trail to Palatki's eastern pueblo. It's an easy hike, well-marked.

The lower end of the trail is across the back of the pasture, so it's flat. Then there's a climb I find of moderate difficulty, mostly because the trail narrows and brush thickens against my clothing. But it's brief, maybe a few hundred feet.

On the way, I pass giant boulders that have fallen from the cliffs and split apart over time (LEFT) Red rock formations near Palatki reflect the sunlight, giving off a brilliant vermilion glow as if they were on fire. (ABOVE) The remarkably smooth rock face above the east and west pueblos results from eons of wind erosion. The jumble of boulders down below fell from the cliffs over time.

Into five, six, and seven pieces, each roughly 20 feet in height. They sit side by side, equidistant, like books on a shelf, one rock looking like the next and the next.

They seem so unreal, as if snatched from the set of a John Ford Western. It's the rabbit again.

The tricks he's pulling with the light are simply awesome. I'm coming up on Palatki's eastern cliff just as the sun's light slants against it. The sheer rock facing is probably 200 feet high and remarkably smooth across its entire surface from thousands of years of punishing wind.

From the bottom looking straight up, the cliff resembles a calm sea with only the slightest breeze disturbing it. As I watch, the dull red becomes a fierce pink. Lively and rich beyond what any artist's brush could create.

I inspect the adobe-brick pueblos tucked against the rocks. One has been reconstructed to a semblance of its original design. It's a four-walled room with entry through a low side opening that I must duck to penetrate.

From the inside, through a tiny window in the wall, I have a long view west across the big valley to the distant mountains and the sun still peeking above their slate-gray outline. No sound can reach me in here. The end of the world could arrive, and I wouldn't hear it. Then out the window I see dust flying off the road leading out. It's my friends, the two women with dreams of real estate success.

I hope they make a million. I'll stay right here and see what the rabbit decides to do next.

TIPS FOR TRAVELERS

For more information on Palatki, which is closed every night at sunset, contact the Sedona Ranger District, Coconino National Forest, P.O. Box 300, Sedona, AZ 86336-0300; (520) 282-4119.

Back road travel in remote areas can be hazardous if you are not prepared for the unexpected. Whether traveling in the desert or in the high country, be aware of weather and road conditions, and make sure you and your vehicle are in top shape and you have plenty of water.

Don't travel alone, and let someone at home know where you're going and when you plan to return.

And remember prehistoric ruins and artifacts are very fragile. Do not damage, move, or remove them. They also are protected by federal law so that future generations can enjoy and study them.