There's something magical about Arizona's desert attractions. Untouched ancient landscapes like the iconic red rock valleys feel timeless and are unmatched in their beauty. To stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon is to stare into a chasm tens of millions of years old. Basking in the ethereal streams of light at the slots of Antelope Canyon, an adventure park in the Navajo Nation
, is to be touched by nature's history itself.Tonto National Monument transports you into Arizona's populated past, where
700-year-old ruins built by the Salado people perch in the mountains of the Sonoran Desert. A less than two-hour car journey gets you there from Phoenix; first drive north in the direction of Tonto Natural Bridge State Park on Route 87, and then turn south on Route 188 past Theodore Roosevelt Lake. The Petrified Forest National Park lies on the other side of the archaeological site to the northeast, just over three hours away.
Once arriving, the journey continues with a guided hike that takes you past flowering scrubland and giant saguaro cacti. Expert guides let you in on secrets of the Salado people who thrived there, and inform you about the impressive wood and adobe structures that somehow still stand today. As you look over the cliff's edge from the dwellings, the Sonoran Desert stretches like a surreal Salvador Dalí landscape, and the Theodore Roosevelt River cuts across the arid expanse and shimmers in the distance.
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What To Expect When You Visit The Tonto National Monument
You get double the intrigue at Tonto National Monument, as the site includes two ruins, each with a separate hike. The Lower Cliff Dwelling is open year-round and is accessible after a half-mile paved trail that slants on the steeper side at about a 13 percent grade. Pretty shrubbery like brittlebush and desert willow line the path along with the towering saguaro cactuses, which have been known to reach as tall as 50 feet. When you reach the ruins, you can walk right in and explore the 20 stone, wood, and adobe rooms that reveal hearths, alcoves blackened with soot, and multicolored ceramics.
Similar remnants of Salado life can also be found in the Upper Cliff Dwellings, which are reached via a mile-and-a-half unpaved trail starting at the visitor center. The site is twice as large at 40 rooms, and clever features like portholes and T-shaped doorways reveal the building's sophisticated architectural planning. These particular features likely allowed for airflow or offered a way to balance while entering, and balconies overlooked sweeping views of the Tonto Basin, where deer, javelina, and coyotes still lived.
Tours to the Upper Cliff Dwelling are offered November through April, Fridays to Mondays. To help preserve this special site, climbing, sitting, or leaning on the ruin walls is strictly prohibited, as is eating or drinking. The placement of artifacts gives important clues to their uses, so it's also important not to touch or move them. Visit the site at night, and you'll see why the National Park Service and International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) has deemed Tonto National Monument as an International Dark Sky Park. From here you can see the Milky Way, and thousands of stars cover the sky and glitter miraculously, like so many diamonds.
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