Round Trip Distance: 3 miles
Difficulty: Easy
MTB Skill level:
Elevation: 3867 - 3989 feet
Cellphone: 0-3 bars
Time: 1 hr. 30 mins.
Trailhead: Bell Trail
Fee: none
Attractions: petroglyphs, rock cupules
The Wet Beaver Creek Petroglyphs are located north of Camp Verde, Arizona. An easy hike along the Bell Trail leads to 3 separate boulders with some faint petroglyphs. The last boulder also has some rock cupules on two sides.
To get there, take I-17 Exit 298 and drive east on the Beaver Creek Road, FS-618, for 2 miles. Turn left and proceed to the trailhead which will be on the right. For turn-by-turn directions you can enter 'bell trail wet beaver creek' into your driving app.
The uneven trail has a gentle incline as it heads up the canyon on the west side of Wet Beaver Creek.
The first boulder is on the left side of the trail near the 1 mile point.
Most of the images are hard to make out but this might be a spiral with a scorpion on the right.
The second boulder is also on the left side of the trail just before the 1.5 mile point.
The images made me think of the two tablets of the '10 Commandments' and now that is stuck in my mind. It looks like there is at least one bear paw or something similar looking.
The third boulder is less than 500 feet further up the trail but this time on the right towards the creek.
This boulder has a half dozen or more shallow cupules pounded into one side.
There are a few more cupules on this side also as well as a square sine wave with a spiral on one end and a cupule on the other. There are a few other lines and dots as well. All in all it looks something like a star map.
