The Brooklyn Basic Site Galleries

Early on the morning of April 5, 2019, my friend Billy Ward and I left Phoenix and drove north, where we spent the day exploring Agua Fria National Monument.  Our primary objective was to find the rock art associated with the pueblo ruins at Brooklyn Basin.  This site is actually in the Tonto National Forest, but you have to drive through the Agua Fria National Monument to reach it.  I had spent a considerable amount of time on the internet and Google Earth, figuring out the location and route to this site.  The drive in took quite a while, and is definitely a four wheel drive adventure.  But the site was very interesting and worth the effort.  As is usually the case, I wish we had more time to spend there, as there is much we probably did not see.  On the way back out, we stopped at Pueblo Plata, and hiked down into Silver Creek.  I was hoping to find a very nice sun (or perhaps shield) element that is supposed to be near this ruin, but we were unable to locate it.  We did find a couple of very small panels at Pueblo Plata, and had a very nice hike nonetheless.  Here are photos from this wonderful day!  (The first two galleries were taken with my cell phone, a Samsung S7; the remaining galleries were taken with my Nikon D7200).  To read the blog post about the trip that included our visit to Agua Fria and Booklyn Basin, look here. 

Travel time to the Brooklyn Basin Site from the freeway was almost two hours.  The main road through the National Monument was not too bad, although a couple of the cattle guard crossings looked to require a high clearance vehicle.  After passing through the National Monument and turning due south on a County Road which turned into a Forest Road after a few miles, the road conditions deteriorated significantly.  Bottom line, don’t let the roads deter you from visiting this site, just take it slow and easy!  However, this is a note of caution from a Visitor’s Guide written by Scott Wood, who used to be an archaeologist at Tonto National Forest: “A few words of caution.  Once you get off the relatively well maintained Bloody Basin Road, the local roads tend to be rough and rutted much of the year (that is when they are not the uniquely nasty mud that they turn into when it rains), and there is the perennial problem of fording the AguaFria…. this is not for the faint hearted or low clearanced…. “.

Due to time constraints, Billy and I did not explore past the Big Deer Panel.  I am not sure how much rock art there is past that point, but I would be willing to bet there is some.  I would enjoy going back to this area and camping for a few days.  I understand there are many more petroglyphs at Baby Canyon and Pueblo Pato, as well as the iconic Tonto Red Deer at the Squaw Creek Ruin.  Here is a site that I found very helpful in locating the various ruins on Google Earth.  This site also has some good informaiton and maps.  Perhaps I will make it back there some day!