Round Trip Distance: 2.8 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 3120 - 3292 feet
Cellphone: 0-3 bars
Time: 2 hrs. 30 mins.
Trailhead: Silver Creek Kiosk
Fee: none
Attractions: petroglyphs, ruins
The Bishop Creek Ruins and Petroglyphs are located near the confluence of Bishop Creek and the Agua Fria River in the Agua Fria National Monument near Black Canyon City, Arizona. The site includes a very small ruin and a handful of petroglyphs upon some of the basalt boulders. The route along the mostly dry Agua Fria River is a very pleasant start and finish to the hike.
To get there take I-17 Exit 259 and follow the Bloody Basin Road for 6.5 miles to the Silver Creek Kiosk. Either park here or where the trail starts about 50 feet away back in the trees.
The trail starts by stepping over a pipe in a short fence that is meant to obstruct motorized vehicles from entering the wash.
After a few feet the trail passes through a gate and then proceeds down the normally dry wash of Silver Creek. Be sure to close the gate as there are usually cows in the area.
About a quarter mile down Silver Creek the trail crosses the Agua Fria River. Most of the time what water there is at this point is running below the surface. This is the closest most of us will come to walking on water without getting their feet wet.
At the mouth of Baby Canyon, which is the course of Bishop Creek, bedrock causes the water to come to the surface in places and you can see that it actually has a current to its flow. In this photo you can see by the debri wrapped around the tree that the high water mark during flash floods is 5-6 feet making it a good place to avoid during a thunderstorm.
Find a convenient place to cross over to the south side of the wash and look for an old road that climbs up the opposite hill.
As the road reaches the top look off to your right and you will see a rocky hill.
As you approach the rocky hill this is one of the first petroglyphs that comes into view.
If you hunt around on the boulders you will find maybe a dozen more petroglyphs including this one.
On another side of the same boulder there are a couple of concentric circles with a few small images, one of which is a small anthropomorphic male.
The ruins themselves only amount to a few rubble pile walls that have long since been overgrown with brush and juniper trees. There are just enough remaining to show the broken outline of a few of the original rooms.
