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Montezuma's Castle

Ahhh, the ignorance of the first Europeans to explore the American south west...

Montezuma's Castle has nothing to do with Montezuma (he was from Mexico and never went this far north) and it isn't a castle but it is pretty cool. Montezuma's Castle is really a cliff dwelling built by native Americans. It was abandoned about 600 years ago (along with a lot of other cliff dwellings)  but nobody really knows why.

This first picture was taken just outside of the visitors center.

There were a couple of large birds circling over the "castle". I have a lot of pictures trying to get all of them at once but this is the best I ended up taking.

Here's the "castle". You'll notice that part of it is much darker. That was due to a restoration project that was done in the 1950's or 60's. The park service does not do restoration work anymore.

Here is what remains of an earlier dwelling on the same site. The small holes in the cliff are where they placed logs.

There's a creek very close to the dwellings which is likely why this areas was settled. You can also see a section of wall that was built for flood prevention,

The rangers that did the restoration also built a diorama based on measurements they took prior to doing any work. It was hard to get a good picture of this due to the glass but since you're no longer able to go inside the dwelling, this gives you a good idea of what it was like.

Last Updated 10/16/11 10:41:06 AM