Roger's Canyon Hike
On March 22, 2009 my wife Kristie and I saw an article about the Roger's Canyon hike to some cliff dwellings as "Hike of the Month" in that month's Arizona Highways magazine. The magazine article stated that the the hike was east of the Peralta Trail trailhead which was an area I had not hiked before so my interest was piqued.
We left our houe at about 7:30 am in order to make the long drive to the trailhead and get a fairly early start on the hike. The road to the trailhead is about 15 miles of rough forest road. It took about 1 hour for this portion but it was through some very beautiful, rugged terrain.
About the time I was thinking we must have missed a turn we made it to the trailhead. There's a nice parking area which was already full. We started hiking at about 9:00am
This hike is mostly downhill on the way in and mostly uphill on the way out. Pretty soon we found ourselves in trees and it didn't look like we were in Arizona anymore.
After about the first mile in the rest of the hike follows the stream. We crossed the stream back and forth many times.
The Roger's Canyon cliff dwellings at the bottom of the canyon were a huge payoff and made it all worthwhile.
A sad thing we saw (and smelled) on the hike was a dead horse. I can't help but think about the sad story that must go along with this.
Last updated April 4, 2009