Round Trip Distance: 0.6 miles
Difficulty: Moderate
Elevation: 3923 - 3966 feet
Cellphone: 0-3 bars
Time: 1 hr. 45 mins.
Trailhead: Brooklyn Group Ruin #1
Fee: none
Attractions: petroglyphs
The Brooklyn Group Petroglyphs are located below the rim of the mesa just east of the first pueblo of the Brooklyn Complex in the Tonto National Forest northeast of Black Canyon City, Arizona. Numerous petroglyphs are found here on boulders and the face of the cliff that stretches out for over a quarter of a mile below the ruins.
To get there follow the directions to the Brooklyn Group of ruins. A good place to start is from a primitive campsite that is on the east side of the first ruin.
From the campsite head toward the canyon where the point of the cliffs comes to an end.
The petroglyphs begin appearing right at the end of the cliffs.
The first stretch of the cliff starting at the point is strewn with boulders where images can be found in abundance.
Among these there are a lot of lizards, turtles, and meaningful looking geometric designs.
There are 2 men and 2 snakes in this panel. It looks like the snakes are touching each mans phallus. Whatever the intended meaning is one can only speculate. Maybe power, virility, or that they were both killed by snakes. Sometimes when the arms are facing downwards it implies someone who is no longer living, i.e., an ancestor.
The largest panels are to the south of the gap in the cliffs.
Many of the images here are also more discernible.
This looks like a person standing beneath a rainbow. The streak above the rainbow brings to mind a comet or meteorite with the other 2 images perhaps representing stars.
Here are a couple of personages with horns or perhaps animal skull masks for headgear.
This is one of the last panels that we came to before heading back. There appears to be a man feeding a sheep and far off to the left, but hard to make out in this photo, is an elk and a man talking to each other.
