Ajo Mountain Drive Stop 6

Stop 6 features one of the three picnic areas along Ajo Mountain Drive.

NPS Photo/ K Ceballos

Quick Facts

Location:

Mile 5.5 [km 8.9] along Ajo Mountain Drive

Amenities

2 listed

Picnic Shelter/Pavilion, Picnic Table

Stop 6

Farming a Dry Land

To your left is Diablo Wash, one of thousands of canyons within the monument that were inhabited by people as far back as 12,000 years ago. The Hohokam called the Sonoran Desert home, cleverly adapting their way of life to the desert’s scarce and variable rainfall. A small settlement stood on the edges of this wash, inhabited from late spring through the fall. Hohokam family-groups spent the hot dry foresummer (May, June and July) planting rows of drought-tolerant crops: corn, tepary beans and squash. Irrigation ditches were dug between the rows and down into the wash below. When the monsoon rains of August began to pour onto the parched earth, the water collected in washes and flash-flooding occurred.

Dams were built in strategic places to divert the floodwaters into irrigation ditches where the water would be most useful. In a months time, and with less than four inches of rain, crops would mature and produce a staple food source, without which humans could not have survived this environment.

The Tohono O’odham continued these dry-land farming practices learned from their Hohokam ancestors. They built shade structures called ramadas, similar to those in our picnic areas, to shelter them from the harsh summer sun as they lived alongside the wash. They spent months planting crops and harvesting saguaro and organ pipe fruits, all the while praying and waiting for the life-sustaining rains to come.