The Apache people are historically nomadic. The language which they speak is related to the Athabaskan languages spoken by native Americans in northern Canada, which gives a hint about the wandering lifestyle of the Athabaskan speakers. On the San Carlos reservation, there is a wide range of religious beliefs. The majority of the San Carlos Apaches are members of a Christian church, but the majority of them also adhere, to a greater or lesser extent, to the traditional Apache religion. It is a holy site of the traditional Apache religion.
Holy mountains are a common to many religions.
Mountains act as conduits between the earth-bound material world and the spiritual world of the sky. The Apache religion specifically discourages the building of permanent altars, temples, or monuments at sacred sites. A road leads across the flank of the mountain, which greatly shortened the length of the needed access road to the telescope. In addition, there are hundreds of vacation homes on the mountain, a man-made lake stocked with fish, transmission towers, and other structures. These structures, however, were built in the bad old days, when native Americans didn't have an effective political voice.