Montezuma Castle National Monument

Parks Directory of the United States / US National Parks / National Monuments

Address:527 South Main St
Camp Verde, AZ 86322
Phone:928-567-5276
Fax:928-567-3597
Web: www.nps.gov/moca/
Size: 858 acres.
Established: Proclaimed on December 8, 1906.
Location:50 miles south of Flagstaff, Arizona, off I-17.
Facilities:Picnic area, rest rooms (é), visitor center (é), museum/exhibit, self-guided tour/trail. Entrance fee required.
Activities:Hiking, diorama/audio program, ranger-led programs.
Special Features:Built in the 12th and 13th centuries by Sinagua farmers, this five-story, 20-room cliff dwelling is one of the best preserved in North America and is a classic example of the last phase of southern Sinagua occupation of the Verde Valley. Early settlers to the area assumed that the imposing structure was associated with the Aztec emperor Montezuma, but the structure was abandoned almost a century before Montezuma was born.

See other parks in Arizona.

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References in periodicals archive

They include Pearce Ferry, Torroweap Overlook, the Colorado River and Glen Canyon Dam, Antelope Canyon, Navajo National Monument and Black Mesa, Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon, Grand Falls, Sedona, Meteor Crater, Petrified Forest National Park, Montezuma Castle National Monument, and others.

Geology underfoot in northern Arizona

In Yellowstone, spectacular geothermal vents spew streams of bubbles underwater, and in Montezuma Castle National Monument, in Arizona, layers of sand bubble and swirl in a spring-fed desert sinkhole.

What lies beneath

The study site was Montezuma Well, a large natural-spring pool in Yavapai County, Arizona, administered by the National Park Service as part of Montezuma Castle National Monument. The wetland possesses several unique limnological characteristics, including the fact that fish cannot survive in its waters due to the high concentration of dissolved calcium carbonate (C[O.sub.2]; Blinn and Sanderson, 1989).

Reptilian prey of the Sonora mud turtle (Kinosternon sonoriense) with comments on saurophagy and ophiophagy in North American turtles

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