Tonto National Monument

After visiting Besh-Ba-Gowah in Globe, Arizona, I headed northward on state route 188 to a place named Roosevelt and the nearby Tonto National Monument.  This park includes two cliff dwellings built by the same Salado people who also built Besh-Ba-Gowah.  Exactly who the Salado were is not universally agreed on.  Depending on who you talk to, they were a group of Puebloans (a.k.a. Anasazi) who left their home farther north, or an offshoot of the Hohokam to the south, or even a mixture of peoples who moved into what is known as the Tonto Basin.  Of the two cliff dwellings, the lower one is reached from the park's visitor center by a paved trail about a half mile long, but which gains about 350 feet in elevation.  (Thus, don't let the name "lower cliff dwelling" fool you.)  Several benches are located along the trail to enable visitors to catch their breath.  From an outdoor patio at the visitor center, I got a view of Roosevelt Lake, with some cacti and trees in the foreground.

The park has lots of cacti, as seen here.  The lower cliff dwelling is in the background toward the left.

Here are some more cacti.

As I rested on one of the benches, I took another shot of the lake and its environs.

I got closer to the cliff dwelling and took this picture, which includes part of the sun.  Even so, you can see more of the trail and its railing, and part of the dwelling itself.

As I got even closer, I took a shot of these two walls, the closer one including two protruding pieces of wood.

As it turned out, they are connected by another wall and the wood.

The dwelling included this series of rooms.

This area is an open space next to the wall of the alcove in which the dwelling is built.

This building, behind another structure, comprises two stories.  Too bad that there is some paleface graffiti toward the right.

To my surprise, there was a park ranger stationed at the dwelling.  He informed me that the walls were all original.  From what I can gather, the park's upper cliff dwelling may be visited only by a guided tour.  For more about Tonto National Monument, go to Visit Arizona, The American Southwest, National Park Foundation and TripSavvy.