Arizona

Catalina State Park

November 30, 2011

First, please allow me to start the blog today by wishing my brother Andy a very happy 60th birthday. I love you, bro!

We are currently camped at Catalina State Park near Oro Valley, Arizona. When I looked the park up on the map, I thought we would be 20 or 30 miles out in the country. As it turns out, there’s a mall right across the road from the gates to the park!

Catalina State Park is located at the base of the Santa Catalina Mountains just north of Tucson, Arizona.   Many of the trails in Catalina State Park work their way up the sides of the awesomely beautiful Santa Catalina Mountains.

Catalina State Park may well become our new favorite park in the U.S.A. (it used to be Maryhill State Park in Washington).

The Park is very well maintained, each site is level with plenty of room for parking both your RV and your vehicle, and the restrooms and showers are immaculate! Every site has at least one Mesquite tree for shade. 

There is no river, but there are two washes – the Sutherland Wash and the Canada del Oro Wash so occasionally there is a water feature! There are two camping loops, a group camping area, numerous picnic areas, trailheads, and an equestrian area.

I found Catalina State Park when I was searching online for ruins in the local area. More than 1,500 years ago, a small Hohokam Indian village was established here on the flanks of the Santa Catalina Mountains. In the 1800′s, the Romero family homesteaded here. They built their farm buildings on the site of the Hohokam Indian Village with stones taken from the Hohokam ruins. The Hohokum village ruins are now referred to as the Romero Ruins.

Catalina State Park is located in the Sonoran Desert. Common plants include mesquite trees, paloverde trees, prickly pear cacti and saguaro cacti – or as Bob would say – cactiasses.

Animals include jack rabbits, cottontail rabbits, mule deer, white-tailed deer, javelina, coyotes, ground squirrels, packrats, various birds, lizards, and snakes. Occasionally the park sees mountain lions, bighorn sheep and black bear. Recently a Mexican Jaguar was captured nearby.

The Park contains a wide variety of archaeological sites – most of which have not been excavated. They are evident from fallen cobble foundations of small rooms and walls, petroglyphs, and samples of mortars and/or grinding slabs. The earliest occupants of the area arrived about 9500 B.C. to A.D. 1. Archeological evidence reveals chipped stone artifacts including projectile points and spear points that are specific to that period of time. Around about A.D. 600, the Hohokam Indians began to settle into villages in the Southwest. They remained until about A.D. 1500.

We hiked an interpretive trail that climbed up out of Sutherland Wash and provided information about the prehistoric and historic structures we were seeing.  The Romero Ruins are located on a ridge above the Sutherland Wash. The village covered about 15 acres and was surrounded by a rock wall. 

 

In the valley below, remnants of a large prehistoric agricultural field system exist including two cobble masonry field houses and numerous rock piles and rock terrace borders. Archeological findings indicate that the Hohokam grew and ate maize and beans, and that they gathered berries. The Sutherland and Canada del Oro washes flowed fairly consistently in prehistoric times providing a source for water. 

The Romero Ruins community was continuously occupied from A.D.500 through A.D. 1450. The greatest number of people appear to have occupied the site during the period from A.D. 850 to 1000. Before and after this, a smaller population lived here. By A.D. 1450, the prehistoric occupation of the site had ended.

 

 

 

Two depressions at the site are the remains of prehistoric ball courts. Hohokam ball courts are large oval depressions with sloping walls. Stone markers are sometimes found at the ends or in the center of Hohokam ball courts.

Within twenty miles of the Romero Ruins, two different caches of prehistoric valuables have been found. Ceramic jars covered by an inverted bowl were decorated with red-on-brown designs. The jars were filled with around 100,000 stone and shell beads and about 30 copper bells. These jars were hidden in areas where there are several natural water catchment basins, called tinajas, surrounded by over 1,500 petroglyphs. This suggests that the jars may have been buried in a sacred place and provides proof that the Hohokam people traveled to or traded with people from great distances.

Francisco Romero and his bride, Victoriana, homesteaded at the site of the Romero Ruins in the mid 1800′s.  According to Francisco Romero’s grandson, Francisco and his wife were forced to relocate to Tucson because of Apache Indian raids. Evidence of the historic Romero farm buildings  is still visible as are the falling rock walls built by the Hohokam Indians in prehistoric times. 

The Hohokam lived in pit houses, so their structures are not as visible.  The trail we hiked did climb to the top of a mound that was identified as a prehistoric garbage mound.

 

 

The day was clear and sunny.  At an altitude of about 3,000 feet, the three quarters of a mile hike among the cacti at the base of the Santa Catalina Mountains can only be described as awesome.

 

 

 

 

 

We made it back to camp in plenty of time to watch the beautiful sunset in the west.

 

It’s raining now.  We’re hoping we will be able to get across the wash tomorrow to return to Foothills West RV Resort.  They don’t “do” colverts here.  If the wash is underwater, you just wait to cross.