Baboquivari Peak Sacred Cave, Petroglyphs, and Himdag Ki Cultural Center

“Baboquivari Peak Sacred Cave, Petroglyphs, and Himdag Ki Cultural Center”  carpooling educational tour to sites in and near Topawa, Arizona, with Old Pueblo Archaeology Center executive director Allen Dart, departing from Pima Community College, 401 N. Bonita Ave., Tucson. Time: 8 a.m.-5 p.m. $40 ($32 for Old Pueblo Archaeology Center and Pueblo Grande Museum Auxiliary members; no charge for members or employees of the Tohono O’odham Nation). In an educational adventure into Native American culture, this tour meets in Tucson at 8 a.m. and travels to the Tohono O’odham (Papago) Indian Reservation for visits to the Tohono O’odham Cultural Center & Museum, the Picture Rock petroglyphs archaeological site, the historic Baboquivari Camp, and a Tohono O’odham traditional sacred cave site. We will visit the Cultural Center in Topawa, Arizona, from 10 a.m. to 11:30, then drive 12 miles east toward Baboquivari Peak (the legendary home of the Tohono O’odham Creator diety I’itoi), stopping for bring-your-own picnic lunch at Baboquivari Camp, a historic Civilian Conservation Corps camp site in the oak woodland just below Baboquivari Peak. After lunch we will take a moderate-difficulty, two-mile-roundtrip, 1,000-foot-elevation-difference hike up a trail that leads halfway up the peak, to visit a cave site traditionally believed to be one of the homes of the diety I’itoi. Finally, we will visit Picture Rock, a small butte that contains petroglyphs and pictographs, bedrock mortars, and ancient artifacts. Modern Tohono O’odham offerings may be present in some of the visited locations. Artifact collecting is not permitted, and photos are not allowed in the cave but are OK outside of it. Registrants may either meet the tour group at 8 a.m. Saturday in Tucson and car-caravan onto the reservation, or may camp in Baboquivari Camp on their own the night before the field trip and meet the tour group at the Cultural Center Saturday morning. Campers must bring their own food and water, as there are no convenience stores or fast food nearby. Reservations required by Wednesday December 2: 520-798-1201 or info@oldpueblo.org.

Marc Severson photograph of some of the petroglyphs at Picture Rock.