The trip went off as planned in spite of my alternator going out on Friday after work and transmission problems on Saturday morning. By Saturday afternoon we were hiking over Bear Springs Pass and into the most beautifull little valley.
We spent all day Sunday exploring the area below the pass and all the way up to the western base of Red Mountain and found very little evidence of prehistoric habitation and nothing Saladoan at all.
Still I am convinced it is in the area, (more…)
Tomorrow I start on my first expedition to find Chichilticalli, the pueblo that Coronado stayed at in southeast Arizona on the trail to Cibola.
My interest in Chichilticalli goes back over 15 years to my work on the Salado sites in the West Turkey Creek area. It was when I became aware of the large Salado population on the west side of the Chiricahuas that I realized the lost pueblo of Chichilticalli did not need to be as far north as the Penalenos but could easilly exist in that area. Of course it would have to be farther north than Turkey Creek since Coronado’s party crossed the mountains at “Chichilticalli Pass” the day after leaving, and there are no passes across the Chiricahuas in that area. But what about several miles north at Apache Pass? (more…)
