BACK ROAD ADVENTURE

An Ancient Lava Field Shrouds an Indian Cave and Mysterious Petroglyphs

The line between legend and history sometimes gets blurred when the imagination encounters a place like Turkey Tanks. The setting, some 18 miles east of Flagstaff, is naturally beautiful and exotic. Huge bald cinder cones, some round and smooth, others as sharply symmetrical as pyramids, rise from a relatively flat plain at the edge of forests filled with pines and junipers. These massive features, the remnants of an ancient lava flow, dominate the landscape and tend to draw your attention away from the deep cracks in the Earth where springs bubbled to the surface and nurtured human communities. Here at the tanks in the Coconino National Forest which can be part of a five-hour excursion from Flagstaff - people lived and farmed and etched their stories in the rocks some 500 years before Christopher Columbus was born. But why they came, and what they were trying to say with the stories they left on the rocks, remains a mystery that tantalizes the imagination.Turkey Tanks is about 2.5 miles north of Winona, hidden behind a curtain of juniper trees directly east of Leupp Road. While the old Sinagua Indian encampment, with its unique petroglyphs, is well known to archaeologists and often visited by people from Flagstaff, it is not easy to find because there are no road signs pointing to it, and Coconino National Forest personnel do not publicize the site.

The petroglyph site and nearby caves, as well as the ruins of a small pueblo that is often referred to as a fort, are located along the San Francisco Wash. The wash is a major drainage that flows from Lake Mary, southeast of Flagstaff, to theLittle Colorado River northeast of the city. Known as recently as the 1930s as Walnut Creek, the wash was dammed around 1903 to form Lake Mary. However, archaeologists have found indications that the ancient Sinagua ancestors of the modern Hopi Indians also built small dams on the creekto collect arable silt in which to grow crops. Small dams that you'll see today along the wash were built in modern times to pool water for animals.

The Sinagua, who lived in the area from roughly A.D. 600 to A.D. 1300, were the oldest known inhabitants along the San Francisco Wash. The tanks remained an important watering hole for all the tribes that traveled through the area. American explorers first wrote about the life-sustaining springs in 1851 and again in 1853 when a team surveying a railroad route came through the area. Lt. Edward Beale also mentioned them in 1857 when he was working on a wagon road across northern Arizona.

remained an important watering hole for all the tribes that traveled through the area. American explorers first wrote about the life-sustaining springs in 1851 and again in 1853 when a team surveying a railroad route came through the area. Lt. Edward Beale also mentioned them in 1857 when he was working on a wagon road across northern Arizona.

Turkey Tanks is only one of several unusual sites to be seen on a drive that can begin in Flagstaff, 140 miles north of Phoenix. From the old railroad depot in Flagstaff, which is now the city's visitors center, drive east and north 6.1 miles on Santa Fe Avenue (historic Route 66) to U.S. 89 to Camp Townsend/Winona Road. Turn right (or east) and proceed for 7.7 miles to Leupp Road. It will be a left-hand turn onto Leupp.

Turkey Tanks is only about 2.5 miles northeast of the junction of Leupp and Winona Roads, but I went past the turnoff and drove a loop, making Turkey Tanks my last stop. If you want to visit only the Turkey Tanks site, watch for Milepost 433, where there is a safe pullout. After parking, walk south to San Francisco Wash. Follow the wash west to Turkey Tanks, less than onequarter of a mile. As you walk down the wash, keep your eyes open for petroglyphs on the east-facing wall, and poison ivy, which grows in abundance in the summer.

There were a couple of other spots I wanted to see in the area before I visited Turkey Tanks. So I drove past the pullout for Turkey Tanks to a turnoff .3 of a mile beyond Milepost 439. I turned right off the paved road onto a wide unmarked gravel road. There were a dozen or so mailboxes on my right as soon as I turned in. I drove straight for a half mile (Saddle Crater was di-rectly in front) and, where the road forks, I stayed left. There are numerous forks and intersections along this road, but it is discernible as the main road, and it heads south-east. At 4.4 miles from the point at which you left Leupp Road, you cross over a cattle guard and the boundary of the Navajo Indian Reserva-tion, where you need a visitor's permit. I stopped as soon as I crossed the boundary because Jack Smith, a Flagstaff historian who was acting as my guide, said there was a cave off to the right he wanted to show me. We walked for .5 of a mile through a weed-covered field at about a 45-degree angle from the boundary gate and came to the edge of the San Francisco Wash. There was a jumble of black volcanic rocks on the hillside, but we picked out a barely discernible path that led to our right about 75 feet. There we found a low-roofed cave about 12 feet deep and 10 feet wide. Numerous small groups of Indians had lived in that cave, Jack said, and it was mentioned in the journals of various 19th-century travelers. The Forest Ser-vice says to avoid the cave as it is dangerously unstable. Once back in your car, con-tinue just over a small hill, less than a quarter of a mile, and stop. Look off to the right, against the side of a hill, for a circle of rocks that forms the walls of a building that served as a mail station for nine months in 1865. Mail car-riers would stop at this point, change horses, and rest. Drive another .8 of a mile and turn left onto an unmarked dirt road and 3.5 miles later you'll reconnect with Leupp Road. At that point you can turn west, left, and return to Winona and Flagstaff, or watch for the pull-out for Turkey Tanks at Mile-post 433. This area, roughly 6,000 feet high, is cold and snowy in the winter, but ideal in all other seasons.

back road adventure TIPS FOR TRAVELERS

To obtain reservation backcountry permits, contact Navajo Nation Parks and Recreation, Cameron Visitors Center, (520) 679-2303. For road conditions and other information, call the Peaks Ranger District Office, (520) 526-0866. Take along the Flagstaff AZ 30x60 minute quadrangle map. Back road travel can be hazardous if you are not prepared for the unexpected. 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. Odometer readings in the story may vary by vehicle.