Hike to Devil's Chasm

My good friend Angie (owner of my favorite home decor boutique "Lulu's Moonfish in Tempe) and I decided to drag our husbands along on a day hike in search of some old Indian Ruins. Devil’s Chasm was our destination and the hike to get there was nothing short of treacherous. Located in the Sierra Ancha Wilderness this hike included very difficult terrain, a lot of poison oak, and an unusually high number of rattlesnakes (we were early enough in the season where this wasn’t a factor, the snakes I mean). But the hike ended at a spectacular cliff dwelling that made it all worthwhile, a 700 year old ruin that few people will ever see. It is believed that the ruin dates back somewhere between A.D. 1275 to 1300.

We slashed our way through the brush and strain to climb up rocky waterfalls for more than 2 ½ hours. On the last hour (hour # 3) of our hike up to the ruins we were actually crawling on our hands and knees grabbing hole of anything that would get us up one more step. The entire last hour was nothing but lose pieces of rock and dirt and it was such a steep incline that there was no way we could stand and walk up, we kept falling and sliding back down.

Once we could finally see the ruins, we had to get up against the base of the mountain and start pulling ourselves up the side of the cliff. We enter the building from one side of the cliff and made our way through the interior. We had to duck through one tiny door after another as we moved from room to room. There were five different chambers. The walls of each room reach a second story, and one room had walls that towered 20 feet or so above the floor.

We washed up with our water bottles as best we could and had lunch and then it was time to head back down the mountain before dark. Once off the cliff and back on the trail we had to do the opposite of what it took to get up the last part of the mountain. Mark was in front of me and so when I saw him sit on his rear end and start sliding down I thought he was crazy and actually ask him so. He was sitting in the dirt and rocks and although I didn't think that we could possibly get any dirter I was wrong. After trying to walk down and falling about three times I decided to follow his example, sat down and started sliding down with Angie & Tom right behind.

About an hour and half later while trying to climb back down one of the water falls, Angie, Mark & I couldn't get a grip onto anything and each of us went sliding down the fall one after the other. We were laughing so hard, I couldn't even tell them whether I was hurt or not. Two hours later we are just about back to the truck, after falling several times along the way… when we were stop by some cows who wouldn’t move off the trail. Mark eventually scared them away and we finally made it back to the truck.

This was a fabulous trip, but we were all ready for it to be over. Don’t know if we’ll ever do it again, but it was certainly worth every minute. ENJOY OUR SLIDESHOW OF THE HIKE BELOW...