Hey! Greetings, everyone.
I'm coming to you from right outside of Payson, Arizona
and Mogollon Rim country
about to explore the Shoofly Village Ruins.
Some old Native American Indian ruins
that I believe are hundreds of years old.
It's beautiful country up here.
I'm really curious to see what this is all about
and I'd love to have you come join me.
So let's get to it.
I don't know much about this area
so this is an adventure in discovery.
I've heard that it's pretty cool.
We'll probably see a bunch of pile of rocks
but we might get some really good
views of Rim country from up here.
I'm already really digging the terrain.
It's very beautiful.
Here's a little map and some signage
that kind of tells you what we're about to undertake.
Looks like it's just a quick quarter of a mile
trail through an old village that's almost
about 800 years old it looks like.
Not really sure what its gonna look like but
I think there's lots of signage along the way.
I can't wait to check it out.
I don't know if there's a preferred
route to do this trail.
It looks like it's a loop. A really short loop.
I'm just kind of walking right past the sign there.
I see some other signs kind of facing
me so I want to say
this is probably the preferred way to go.
This trail is paved.
It's very gravely... like, really cracked.
I don't know.
I'm not gonna really make a judgement about accessibility.
It could could work maybe,
but it's gonna be a bumpy ride.
Here's some signage telling you
about the ruin.
It looks like it was a community
maybe of about 250 people.
This was occupied between 1000 and 1250 AD.
It had more than 80 rooms with many
courtyards and plazas.
It looks like these people had cultural ties to the
Hohokam and Salado people.
We've actually visited
Hohokam ruins at Sears Kay
and we've got a video about that that I'll link to
down in the description below.
So it's interesting to always compare and contrast
these sites to see similarities.
So far I'm just enjoying the peace and quiet.
That's all that matters to me.
I'm gonna stay on the trail but I'm gonna guess
these rocks are the remnants of old
structures that were once here.
There's some more on this side so I
guess to the untrained eye if I didn't know,
you know, I'd probably just walk by
and not think much of it to be honest.
The thing though that makes these places
fascinating to me are that people, just
like you and me, used to call this their home.
If you could rewind the clock a few hundred years ago
I would just be amazed at what you might see here.
There's great signage here that tells you a lot
of interesting information about the area.
What this is really talking about, I
think, are different periods or time
periods and the different sections.
I guess village areas.
There's three major ones that make up this area
and some of them have like oval-shaped structures
and some are square structures.
So a weird variety of different types of structures.
The architects may have changed their
building styles to deal with changing
social needs and conditions.
Here are some more stones.
This looks more interesting.
I'm gonna guess all of this rubble
are the remnants of one of the areas here.
This here looks like something pretty cool.
The sign says that this little area here
has been reconstructed.
This is just an example of their building style.
They used a lot of red sandstone
as you can see here for building.
Now I'm enjoying this so far
but I can tell you right off the bat
that I don't know if for everyone this would be
the most interesting place to come visit.
If you're into Native American history
and the people that were indigenous to this area,
I think you'd like it
and the views are fantastic.
Compared to something like Sears Kay in North Phoenix...
so far I'd give my vote to Sears Kay
if you want to see more defined structures.
Although I believe they did a lot of reconstruction
at Sears Kay also.
I'm not sure if Sears Kay would have
looked more like this had more modern
man not intervened and cleaned up some
of the stuff there.
Anyway this is still really cool to me, you know.
I really dig seeing this kind of stuff.
It's always just the thought in the back
of my mind that this was somebody's home.
A group of people's home hundreds of years ago.
This talks about some of the archaeology work
that occurred here in the 1980s
by Arizona State University.
They were digging around here and they found
a lot of really neat artifacts
suggesting that some of these
were living spaces as well as storage spaces.
Here's kind of a view of one of those square rooms.
It said this area that we're standing in contained 27
square and rectangular shaped rooms.
I'm going to assume like this.
Like the one I'm looking at right here.
I'm very likely standing in someone's room.
Someone probably slept here.
That's so cool.
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One thing that's really cool though
is seeing all this rubble.
You know, it really gives you a sense
of the size, I think, of this village.
Now I'm really starting to get it.
I would say compared to Sears Kay,
this area seems to cover a much,
much larger area.
I'm guessing it was a much larger
group of people that lived here.
Really neat.
Here's another nicely defined room.
It looks pretty square
right in front of me here.
Once again this talks about how many
of the rooms bordered each other
and had large courtyards
and were used for both living purposes and storage.
Off in the distance there are those cliffs.
I believe are in fact the Mogollon Rim
and for those of you that don't know,
that is the end of the Colorado Plateau.
It is absolutely gorgeous out here.
Well worth the trip just for the beauty
but the ruins make it over-the-top cool.
I'm kind of winding back now I think.
The loop is heading back.
I'm gonna guess I'm more than halfway done already.
I've probably been here about 10 or 15 minutes so far.
I'm very pleased with what I'm seeing.
It's always really cool.
So, so far so good.
From over here you kind of get a nice
little view too of these adjacent structures.
This is another pretty squared off area.
I'm assuming another room or storage room here.
Winding around this way... many more stones.
This must be one of the older areas.
It looks like these are the oval rooms
that I mentioned earlier.
It says the square rooms were from a
slightly later time period.
This must be the older section.
I'm really struggling to see oval structures here though.
This here I guess is the the main one.
It is... I guess it does have rounded corners.
I'm guessing this is what they're talking about.
If you can see that.
I'll kind of take a quick peek down here.
I'm not sure if there's much to see.
I see some more rubble, like, over here.
Right here in front of me
there's a beautiful view of the rim though.
They're kind of dubbing this area
in front of us... ancient apartments.
Looks like there may have been multiple levels maybe.
You can see right beyond all that rubble.
That must have been the apartment complex.
I kind of did some very quick research
of this area. I was curious.
I didn't really know much about it.
I just read a few people's thoughts online.
Most of what I was reading are people saying
that you know you could probably pass on this location.
Unless you're really into Native American ruins,
many any think that is not worth stopping here
and I would totally disagree with that.
If you're driving through Payson, Arizona...
maybe you're going to Tonto Natural Bridge
maybe you're going from Phoenix to Winslow
or back the other way...
you're really going to pass right by this.
This is not that far off the beaten path.
I think it's worth it.
I've been here maybe about 20 minutes to half an hour.
If I wasn't filming you could spend about 15
minutes here... maybe 20 and see it all.
It's absolutely worth it. It's fantastic.
It's history and this surrounding country
is absolutely beautiful.
So there's multiple incentives
for visiting up here, I would say.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this adventure here
up near the Mogollon Rim.
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Until next time.
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