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More than 450 sites and almost no crowds
Forty miles north of Phoenix, past the last suburb and the last gas station you’ll think to stop at, the land opens into something that doesn’t look like it belongs next to a major city.
Agua Fria National Monument spreads across 71,000 acres of high desert, and almost nobody goes there.
The people who do come back talking about rock carvings, crumbling stone villages, and a canyon river cutting through the middle of it all. The quiet part is the part that surprises people most.
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Farmers and hunters lived here for 2,000 years
Long before Phoenix existed, this land was home to Archaic hunters and gatherers who moved with the seasons. Around 700 CE, Hohokam farmers started building small villages on the mesa tops and along the river…