Tucked into caves high above the Salt River and south of Theodore Roosevelt Lake in the Superstition Mountains is the Salado Cultural site of Tonto National Monument. At the park there are two main hikes, the Upper & Lower Cliff Dwelling hikes. Unfortunately, as of October 2023, the Upper Cliff Dwelling hike is closed since the trail has washed away. The Lower Cliff Dwelling hike is a beautiful but very steep One mile roundtrip hike past towering Saguaros and with a beautiful view of the Tonto Basin behind you the entire time. The trail opens at 8am and closes strictly at 4pm from September through May. During the four months of May through August, you must begin the hike before noon. They also demand every visitor bring their own water, which is smart.

When the site was heavily occupied by the Mogollon/Anasazi/Hohokam mix that is the Salado Culture, there was no lake, only the river which had many Hohokam plaza and mound sites as well. But they’re underwater now. By AD 1300, around 3,000 people lived in the area as the Anasazi/Ancestral Puebloans up north were abandoning their territory for that of their southern neighbors. It would all be abandoned by AD 1450.

For more information on the people that inhabited this area since at least 10,000 years ago, be sure to listen to my podcast series over the Ancient Ones of the American Southwest.

Theodore Roosevelt designated the park a Monument in 1907, also long before the lake which shares his name and quite some time after the Apache were forcibly removed from the area in the 1860s & 70s.

If you’re lucky, you can see plenty of wildlife and beautiful desert fauna. There’s the very evasive Ringtail, the Javalina, Jackrabbit, Gila monster, & if you’re not so lucky, the Mountain Lion. You’ll absolutely see plenty of Saguaros, Teddy Bear Chollas, Prickly Pear Cactus, & Cholla.