Lime Creek Canyon South Rim

Lime Creek Canyon is one of the southernmost canyons of the Cedar Mesa area of southeast Utah. The access roads are south of the Kane Gulch Ranger Station along Utah Route 261.

I started at the dirt road that is 13.1 miles south of the Ranger Station. From the rocky outcrop hilltop ruins site that is near a road junction, it took me about 0:20 minutes to walk to the south rim. (See the previous post for the hilltop ruins views.)

It is possible to hike at the bottom of the canyon, but there are small ruins sites visible near the top of the north rim canyon walls that probably aren’t visible from below.

You need binoculars to spot the small ruins sites. Even if you can’t find them, the Lime Creek Canyon is very scenic. In the upper part of the canyon, I couldn't see any water flowing below.

More or less across from the rocky hilltop near where I started, there is a small two or three room ruin in the first small alcove below the rim.

In this area, there are two short side canyons to walk around. Ahead, on a ledge near the rim on the right, there is a scatter of boulders. There are small structures hidden on the ledge on each side on the boulders.

These shadow hidden sites look mostly like storage sites. It looks like the ledge would be hard for the residents to access, but maybe a ladder by the boulders was possible.

Further on, there are some eroded needle-like formations visible. To the right of the needles on a ledge near the top, there is a small structure visible. I turned around here after 2:30 hours of hiking. There are some alcoves visible down canyon further to the right that appear to be likely sites, but I couldn't tell. Along this section of canyon I saw three definite ruins sites and one or two others that I couldn't tell for sure.

On the return hike I cut through the forest toward the rocky hilltops where the dirt road ended. My return hike took 1:20 hours for a total hike 3:50 hours for about 5.8 miles. It was an early September day, about 70 F degrees in the morning and about 80 F in the afternoon. I carried and drank 3 liters of water. I didn't see any other hikers during my hike.