Day 3: Honanki Pictographs and Cliff Dwelling

Distance: 0.6 mile loop
Elevation: 4,700 – 4,750 ft
Elevation Gain: 50 ft


If you are going to Palatki, a very nice Sinaguan site, be sure to also visit Honanki. The setting is not as pretty in my mind, but the site does have better, if less historically significant, pictographs. The short trail winds through pine and shrub and was very accessible to my mother who has trouble with stairs. In contrast, she did not climb the stairs to Palatki but stayed just below communing with the lizards on the rocks.

Trail to the Honanki site

You can actually see texture and finger marks in this pictograph

Honanki ruins

Honanki is only 4.4 miles beyond Palaki, but I would recommend setting your trip odometer because that distance is deceiving when you are driving slowly on a dirt road. I kept thinking, gosh that rock formation has got to be it etc. It was not. You will recognize the site immediately and don’t be freaked out when you hit the boundary of the Handcock ranch. The route goes right through it.

The bottom row of images was not visible to the naked eye but became visible when I enhanced the colors of the picture.

One of the local tour companies takes folks to this site, so there were at least 4 tour groups on site. They are small and timed themselves pretty well, so it was not terribly intrusive. I think they are helping to fund the restoration of the area, so you can’t bitch too much about that.

The Sinaguans are gone, but the cliff dwellings are far from uninhabited.