Round Trip Distance: 0.5 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 5299 - 5349 feet
Cellphone: 0 bars
Time: 1 hr.
Trailhead: 36.42485, -113.08052
Fee: none
Attractions: petroglyphs, pictographs
The Witch Pool site is located in the Arizona Strip south of Colorado City, Arizona. Found at the site near a perennial pool of water are a few petroglyphs and pictographs. Most of the pictographs and some of the petroglyphs are pretty faded but a few of the petroglyphs still show up quite well.
The best all weather route is probably to turn off of AZ-389 onto County Road 109 and follow it for 44.2 miles. At the 40 mile point CR 109 meets up with CR 5 and comes to an end. From there continue south on CR 5 for 4.2 miles and turn right. If the weather has been very dry then County Road 5 is probably a little faster although it is the exact same distance to the turnoff.
After turning off of CR 5 onto the unmarked side road you can only go a quarter mile or so before you will need a high clearance vehicle and possibly even 4WD. From CR 5 to Witch Pool it is 2 miles one-way of easy hiking if that is what you decide to do. The washed out spot in this photo is at the 1.3 mile point from CR 5. After turning right at this point the road gets much better all the way to the trailhead.
The road comes to an end at a primitive campsite next to the wash where it is another quarter mile to Witch Pool.
Hiking up the wash from the trailhead requires finding routes around a few trees and boulders. There are patches of good trail on the left bank of the wash that are easy to follow until you reach a spot that is overgrown with trees and bushes.
A little over half way from the trailhead to Witch Pool the route turns up a side canyon.
This cross is the first thing that we noticed in the side canyon. If it is supposed to be a Christian cross we wondered if it was something that the Paiutes made after the Spanish padres or white priests tried converting the Native people.
Just past that on the right side of the canyon there is a large surface that had quite a few images on it at one time. We outlined a few images on our computer that are just barely discernible to give an idea of what is there.
To get to Witch Pool you have to make a short climb up to a higher level. There is a good route on the right that makes it pretty easy.
Most of the petroglyphs that we found are up high on the left side of the canyon. After climbing up to the level of Witch Pool there are a couple of places where you can scramble up there to take photos.
Not being very roomy Witch Pool was probably just a good source for water and place to corner deer and such for hunting. For a little hunting magic there is a boulder on the right side in front of the pool, right where you scramble up, that has an image of a bighorn sheep or deer.
Most of the petroglyphs that are higher up on the cliff can be seen while standing in front of Witch Pool.
Here there is a male figure on the right and a female figure on the left.
To the right of those petroglyphs there are some red pictographs that are too faint to make much out.
