Around Lyman Lake State Park

The wind finally died down on Wednesday and we could enjoy this park. I love that it has large, well made spaces. Each site has a roofed lean-to and a grill.

And each has a nice fire pit.

Matey and I have at least started all of the trails. He sometimes refuses to go further, and I don’t make him. He’s almost fourteen, has a heart murmur from a thickened valve and consequently an enlarged heart. I try to give him opportunities to walk, but if he wants to turn around I let him. We generally manage to walk two or three miles a day.

I am so impressed with how well these trails are made. They are all cleared of rocks and the native materials are used for steps, water diversions and little bridges.

There is a trail cutting across this hillside but since it’s made by rearranging the rocks that were there you can hardly pick it out.

Once you get to it, it’s easy to see and pretty easy to walk on, considering the hilly, rocky terrain it’s crossing. The construction here reminds me of the work done years ago by the CCC, and I appreciate it.

The trails wind around the flat topped hills here and afford some nice views.

There are mountain bluebirds here that I see almost every day. What a treat.

Wednesday we hiked up the petroglyph trail again. We found we had seen most of them. We found this rock with what are probably clan signs on it. The square with diamonds and 5 protrusions is a bear track, symbol of the Bear Clan. The rounded tracks below and to the upper left of it are probably for the Badger Clan.

There were nice views from there, too.

We noticked a ledge of rock that looked like it might have petroglyphs but didn’t see a trail. This morning (Saturday) I was looking at the trail map and saw there was one, so since the wind hadn’t started up yet we walked up there. I was excited to find this petroglyph I think looks like what we learned yesterday is a water strider and was carved to show places where there was drinking water. (More on that in my next post.)

Thursday we drove to the far end of the park to the Rattlesnake Point Pueblo ruins. The flat area that Matey and Bud are standing on is all part of the structure, but only the area under the roof is excavated.

Drifting sand has built up around the partially collapsed walls, but when this was built around the 1320’s it was built on top of the ground.

Today it sits near the edge of Lyman Lake,

but this would have been a floodplain of the Little Colorado River, giving the people land for crops. They grew the three sisters here; corn, beans and squash.

There were signs to help you interpret what was there, although I could not find the stone with the design pecked in it. There were also signs asking that you not take anything you found and not dig. Otherwise you were free to wander about.

The rooms were interesting. (Notice the tumbleweeds that have blown inside. I was unhappy to learn that tumbleweed is Russian thistle, an invasive species. So much for the nostalgia of the old west.)

What I liked best were the pottery shards and bones folks had found and left lying on flat stones for us to examine.

700 year old pottery that you could pick up and examine! There’s also a part of a modern cup and handle in there, but I wasn’t going to remove it. The site is being treated with respect, that’s great.

This afternoon the wind is blowing again. There is a wind and dust advisory for today and tomorrow, and tomorrow we leave so our exploring here is done.