Four Corners Hikes-Cedar Mesa in Utah

Road Canyon South Rim

2011-10-18T13:44:00.000-07:00

The south rim of upper Road Canyon can be accessed along the Cigarette Springs Road. This bumpy road is one of the east turnoffs south of the Kane Gulch Ranger Station along Utah Route 261 in the Cedar Mesa area of southeast Utah.

About 6 miles east there is a north turnoff that leads about 0.8 miles to the Road Canyon south rim. At the rim there is a route that descends into the canyon and a trail both east and west along the rim. I followed the rim trail east. Road Canyon is deep and layered as it meanders toward the east. With binoculars, there may be small Ancestral Pueblo ruins sites visible across the canyon.

The trail is easy to follow along the dirt segments and has rock cairns marking the way on the bare sandstone segments. After about 2 miles, there is a peninsula extending out into the twisting canyon. Just before the peninsula, there is a rocky outcrop with several large potholes that were holding pools of water.

The trail descends, with some rock scrambling, about 30 feet on the west side to a ledge and then crosses above the neck of the peninsula. There is more scrambling with a looping descent down the sloping sandstone before reaching the level of the narrow neck that leads to the large outcrop at the tip. This segment is somewhat exposed but is marked with cairns.

On the south side of the large boulder formation at several well preserved rooms. Sometimes these large boulder based sites have rooms on the boulder top, but there is no sign of that here. I didn’t see any kivas or rubble pile structures in the level area below these rooms. This doesn’t appear to be a village. Not very many people could live here and it looks like there isn’t much winter shelter.

These rooms don’t have a view toward the approach along the peninsula. One room has a good view down the canyon. Sleeping Ute Mountain, Mesa Verde, and the LaPlata Mountains are visible in the far distance, about 100 miles away.

One of the rooms has what appears to be a small window. Many of these structures have small openings in addition to the doorways, but an intermediate size opening like this seems unusual. There was a small display of artifacts here.

There are two low walls along the walkway out the rocky peninsula. If these were for defense, they don’t seem to be much of a barrier compared to the rocky ledges that come before. My total hike took 4:00 hours on a 64 F windy mid October day. I carried and drank 3 liters of water. I saw 4 other hikers and 4 dogs during my hike.

Lower Snow Flats Road and Mormon Trail

2011-10-12T06:09:00.000-07:00

The lower end of the Snow Flats Road begins about 2 miles north of the south end of the Comb Wash Road. The south end of the Comb Wash Road is a north turn off of Highway 163 about 8 miles west of Bluff in southeast Utah.

There is a junction where the Snow Flats Road splits from the Comb Wash Road with Snow Flats branching off to the left. It is marked as County Road 237 and there are also the covered wagon symbols of the Mormon Trail. About 3 miles past this junction, there is an information kiosk.

This route has some bumpy eroded spots where it crosses the small washes. There is a sign reminding visitors that a special permit is now required to visit the Moon House ruins site. I think that from where I started hiking, it is at least 10 miles to Moon House. Hiking in this area has good views of the west side of Comb Ridge and is historic.

I started hiking at the information kiosk that is 5 miles north of the junction with Highway 163. The Snow Flats Road turns northwest and starts to climb. The vegetation close to the Comb Wash is mostly Greasewood and Three Winged Saltbush. As the road climbs, the vegetation changes to Blackbrush and Mormon Tea with Cliff Rose, Narrowleaf Yucca, Indian Rice Grass and a few Utah Junipers.

About 2 miles past the information kiosk, there is a short side road that leads to a south overlook over the lower part of Road Canyon. There was a trail leading down from the overlook and it looked like this was a route to the canyon floor.

I followed the trail down a short distance, but on this hike I wanted to explore along the road. I spent about 30 minutes looking around this rim area but didn’t notice any Ancestral Pueblo ruins sites. Continuing on, there is an entrance sign for the Road Canyon Wilderness Sturdy Area.

After 2:20 hours of hiking and about 4 miles, I stopped and climbed a low hilltop that had good 360 degree views. It looked like there is a survey monument on top of this hill. The Snow Flats Road continues across a level area for about 1.5 miles before reaching the distant cliffs. The road on the section I hiked was in good condition.

The return hike shows the views of the massive barrier that the Mormon pioneers faced as they descended off of Cedar Mesa. In 1879-1880, 200 people with 83 wagons, several hundred horses and 1000 cattle descended this way. There aren’t any interpretive signs along this section of trail. On the rough road that continues south of Highway 163 there are several signs pointing out the places where the pioneers were eventually able to cross Comb Ridge. In Bluff, the Fort Bluff site has been developed into an interesting historical site.

When viewing Comb Ridge from the east side, the pinkish Navajo Sandstone is mostly visible. From the west side, this appears to be the cliffs of the Wingate Sandstone sitting on the shales and mudstones of the Chinle layer. The ledgy Kayenta layer above the Wingate seems to be present most of the way with a few glimpses of the Navajo sandstone. This section of Comb Ridge just east of the Snow Flats Road, where the Navajo sandstone is visible, is the area where the Procession Panel is located.

My total hike took 4:00 hours for 8 or 9 miles. I carried and drank 3 liters of water on a 65 F degree mid October day. I didn’t see any vehicles on the Snow Flats road during my hike. There was one vehicle that appeared to be camping.

Arch Canyon to Comb Ridge Trail

2011-09-21T04:20:00.000-07:00

The trailhead area for the Arch Canyon trail is 2.5 miles north along the BLM road that is just west of Comb Ridge along Utah Scenic Route 95. This area is west of Blanding in southeast Utah.

I started my hike over Comb Ridge from the Arch Canyon parking area and followed the BLM road north, crossing the mud hole formed by the Arch Canyon Creek.

In the first five minutes back on the road north, there is a hilltop rubble pile ruins site visible. Not much has held together at this site, but there are good views up the Comb Wash and back toward the mouth of Arch Canyon.

It appears that the mouth of Arch Canyon has three ruins sites that guard the approach. Walnut Knob and this hilltop site provide elevated lookout points and the large rubble pile below directly guards the entrance.

It took 1:10 hours to climb to near the top of Comb Ridge. This trail is the old road that was in use before the engineered notch that Highway 95 uses. The road is very rough but probably usable by ATVs. I didn’t see any vehicles on the trail while I hiked, though there were vehicles on the better roads at the top. At the point where the trail crosses the head of a short side canyon there are pictographs and petroglyphs to find.

The pictographs are in a sheltered alcove above some steep cliffs. There are many hand prints and other figures, including a white star and a reddish human figure with large hands and feet. From this angle there isn’t a way to climb up closer.

From the same view point for the pictographs a jug handle type arch is visible. The arch is directly above the trail and is visible from only a narrow angle.

A short distance past the pictograph is a petroglyph panel. There is a trail that allows a close view. The side trail starts about 150 yards further up the main trail and comes back along a ledge. The side trail isn’t marked but is clearly visible.

Flute player images are fun to find. This one doesn’t seem to have a backpack or any headgear.

At the top of the trail there is a side road with a San Juan County marker. Some maps show this road as Posey’s Trail. I continued past this road to a faint ATV trail and turned south. Along this ATV trail I could see the alcove that contains the Tower House Ancestral Pueblo ruins site. I found a way down into the Butler Wash and continued to the ruin along the wash, but this isn’t the common way to arrive there.

There is a second faint ATV trail about 0.2 miles further east that also leads south and has a rock cairn marked trail that continues. There aren’t any signs for the trail along the road. It took me 2:25 hours to arrive at the Tower House site. I hiked on a mid September day that was 60 F at 9:30 AM and 82 F at my 2:15 PM finish. I carried and drank 3 liters of water.

Tower House Ruins Trail

2011-09-20T10:44:00.000-07:00

The Tower House Ruins Trail starts as an unmarked vague ATV trail and then is marked with rock cairns down into the head of Butler Wash in southeast Utah. I arrived by hiking up the west side of Comb Ridge from the Arch Canyon trailhead parking area. You could also drive to the trailhead by driving on forest roads from the east.

The tall tower to the left is the most eye catching structure along with the smaller structure to the right.

The building style of the lower level seems to use flatter stones with more mud mortar than many of these sites. The upper level seems to use larger stones. One could guess that the upper level was built at a later time or by different builders.

Between the two structures are a several examples of rock art. The human figure to the left with large hands is somewhat similar to a large hands and feet pictograph I saw while hiking up from the west side.

The alcove continues to the right of the main structures. Down in the shady area there is a circular structure sunk into the alcove floor.

Some of the brickwork of the kiva is still in place. On the alcove wall between the two sections of alcove there are more rock art examples and several places that were used to shape and sharpen stone tools. The eye catching rock art includes some red hand prints.

In the area in front of the alcoves there are some Cholla cacti that provide some color. The area about 200 yards downstream from the alcove has a couple of Ponderosa Pine trees growing at the bottom of the wash.

Cottonwood trees also grow close to the wash bottom in an area that otherwise has Pinon Pines and Utah Junipers. There are more alcoves in the area, but I didn’t see any other structures. I spent about 0:25 minutes at the ruins site and it took 0:20 minutes to climb back up to the road.

Three Kiva Pueblo Neighbors

2011-06-12T15:18:00.000-07:00

The Three Kiva Pueblo is an accessible Ancestral Pueblo ruins site in the Montezuma Canyon in southeast Utah. Much of the floor of Montezuma Canyon is private property but there are several small ruins sites that can be viewed from the road.

Three Kiva Pueblo is about 27.7 miles south from the north end of Montezuma Canyon Road. High on the cliffs to the east of Three Kiva a small storage structure is visible with binoculars under an overhanging rock. (It is in this picture but is hard to see.)

A small granary site is about 0.8 miles north. There is a side road leading to the area below the structure.

The largest site that I saw was 2.9 miles north. There are several cliff structures in a wide alcove with some rubble structures below.

This site has a protective fence in front. This site also has a loop side road leading to the site.

The northern area of the Montezuma Canyon has many alcoves. Most are hard to see from the road but there is one where some wall fragments are clear. This site is about 13.4 miles north of the Three Kiva site. Traveling slowly along the 35 miles of Montezuma Canyon and stopping when I though I saw something took about 3 hours. There are more sites than I mention here and probably more that I missed.

Montezuma Canyon Rock Art

2011-06-09T14:49:00.000-07:00

Three Kiva Pueblo is a publicized Ancestral Pueblo site along the rugged Montezuma Creek Road between Monticello and Blanding in southeast Utah. The north end of Montezuma Creek Road, C-146, is five miles south of the Visitor Info Center in Monticello, Utah east off of Route 191.

About 6.8 miles south of the Three Kiva Pueblo, there are cliffs close to the road with several petroglyph panels. There isn’t a sign but there is a turnoff parking spot on the west side of the road. The panels extend for several hundred feet.

It is a short climb up to the base of the cliffs and there is a primitive trail to follow. Some of the figures must be relatively recent and include riders on horses.

The figure in the upper left seems unusual. The bottom part resembles a flute player, but the part on top is more elaborate than the usual flute player head dress.

Some of the figures appear much older and ghostly in appearance. To the right, it looks like the larger figure is standing on the shoulders of the smaller figures.

The bird images are particularly clear. They look like herons or some shorebird. There is water in the Montezuma Canyon but I didn’t see any wetlands that would provide habitat for this type of bird.

Wagon Wheel Trail-Blue Mountains

2011-06-08T06:01:00.000-07:00

The Wagon Wheel Trail visits the east side of the Blue Mountains in the Manti-La Sal National Forest in southeast Utah. The trail head is 5.4 miles along the forest road past the Devils Canyon campground. The campground is between Monticello and Blanding, Utah on the west side of Highway 191.

At the trail head area there is a primitive campground area with a restroom. The trail head for the Camp Jackson Trail is 0.4 miles further along the forest road. In this area, there is a network of ATV trails and many of the side forest roads have trail markers.

Besides being numbered as trail 168, the Wagon Wheel Trail appears to have an ATV Route 90 designation. The trail head elevation is about 8200 feet and the trail climbs about 800 feet in 2 miles.

The route passes through Ponderosa Pines and Gambel Oaks with Aspens appearing as the trail climbs. There are views of South Peak at 11, 419 feet, and a cliff layer that the peak rests on. After about 0:25 minutes of hiking there is a trail junction. The main route is marked to the right, continuing north. I detoured to the left and followed the side trail climbing another 0:20 minutes until it dead ended at a canyon rim.

I thought the side trail was more scenic than the main trail with views to the west toward the Bears Ears and the canyon country of Cedar Mesa. There were also good views back to the east toward Sleeping Ute Mountain and the LaPlata Mountains. The Camp Jackson Trail may descend down into this canyon area.

Back on the main trail, there are views of South Peak all along the way. In early June, there were several moist meadows along the way with Iris in bloom.

The route continues north, and crosses Verdure Creek and North Fork Creek, each with a small bridge. The first creek had many maple trees in the moist drainage. There is another trail junction between the creeks and I stayed to the right following the marker for ATV Route 90.

I turned around about 0:15 minutes past the trail junction, about 2.5 miles from the trail head. My return hike took 1:00 hour. My total hike including the side trail took 3:30 hours for about 7 miles. I carried and drank 2 liters of water on a 62 F degree early June day.

At the Devils Canyon Campground, there is a short 0.2 mile interpretive trail that is themed “The Forest and Man.” There is a trail guide and 12 stops that discuss the forest trees and signs of forest fires and forest use by man.

At stop 12 a small Ancestral Pueblo storage ruin is visible across Devils Canyon. Devils Canyon runs 13 miles southeast and joins Montezuma Canyon where there are also many ruins sites.

The Telluride Blanket

2011-06-05T11:41:00.000-07:00

In 1896, ranchers Mel and Ed Turner were searching for stray cattle somewhere in the canyons of southeast Utah and found a perfectly preserved high quality woven blanket. This blanket, some yarn, and a picture of an alcove ruin later came into the possession of Telluride banker W.E. Wheeler.

The Wheeler estate passed to the Pekkarine family who in 1970 left their possessions to the Telluride Historical Museum. After nearly a century of resting in Telluride, the significance of the blanket was realized. In 1994, the picture of the alcove was published with an appeal for help in locating the site where it had been found.

Only three other pre-historic perfectly preserved blankets are known. The Telluride Blanket is the only brown, red, and white twill fabric from the time period of 1041 to 1272 AD.

The Telluride Historical Museum is located in the restored 1896 Hall’s Hospital at 201 West Gregory Ave. This location is very close to Tomboy Road and the east trailhead for the Jud Wiebe Trail. I visited the museum after hiking the Jud Wiebe Trail clockwise, starting at the Cornet Falls west side trailhead.

The museum interpretive display says that a researcher led a visit to the site where the inscriptions of “E. Turner” and “Mel Turner” and “1896” were found. The recent guide to interpreting archaeology sites, “The Cliff Dwellings Speak” by Beth and Bill Sagstetter has an account of the story and site visit in Chapter 14.

The author describes how the documentation of early explorations is often separated from the artifacts recovered and an effort called Reverse Archaeology is needed to fill in the information gaps. The efforts by Fred Blackburn and the rediscovery of the Wetherill Cave 7 are an example.

In 2004 the Sagstetters were looking at a 10 year old magazine that showed the photo of the cliff dwelling where the Telluride Blanket was found a century before. Bill was stunned to realize that he had visited this site; in fact it had been the first wild site that he had found in 1968. Equally stunning is that in the ten years since the photo was published, no one else had identified the site.

The Telluride Blanket is 57 inches by 59 inches and is described a “wearing blanket”, multiple uses, sleeping, wrapping for warmth, used to carry material, spread on the ground for sitting. The twill weave is difficult to master and this blanket must have been woven by an expert. The cotton must have come from a warmer climate than the area where the blanket was found.

The site visit to the ruin pictured found that the Telluride Blanket and the historic inscriptions was actually in an alcove 300 feet above the pictured site. The conditions above were dry and there was dirt where the pot containing the blanket could have been buried. The author mentions that what he thought was a very neat site in 1968, now tells an interesting story. We improve our powers of observation and understanding with experience.

There are ongoing investigations of the Telluride Blanket. Where did the cotton and dyes come from? What happened to the pot, beads, and awl that were originally found with the blanket? A question that hikers would ask is where is the site? If you were starting out as a canyon hiker in 1968, or even now, where would you look first?

The small room where the Telluride Blanket is on display doesn’t have any other Ancestral Pueblo artifacts. In the Telluride area the Utes are the people of interest and there are some displays relating to their activity in the mountain area. The San Juan Mountains were the center of their lives and the cycle of life is emphasized.

Upper Butler Wash Trail to Target Ruin

2011-05-06T05:27:00.000-07:00

The Upper Butler Wash Trail is 1.25 mile route that visits three easily visible Ancestral Pueblo sites along the main trail. The trail begins 0.25 miles east of the well marked publisized Butler Wash Ruins Trail that is along Scenic Byway Utah Route 95 west of Blanding in southeast Utah.

Just inside the fence at the trail head for the Butler Wash Ruins Trail, there is a path leading to the right that follows near the fence to the Upper Butler Wash trail head. There is also parking space along the highway close to the trail head, but there isn’t a sign identifying the trail.

From the west rim, the Upper Butler Wash is a narrow green gash in the sandstone. Down below, the trail area has a meandering creek and many trees.

The Ballroom Cave site is visible in a large alcove about 40 minutes of hiking along the trail, and two more sites are a short distance further. Not visible from the trail, and easily missed is the alcove containing the interesting Target Ruins.

The side trail that I used leading to the Target site is about 800 feet back toward the trail head from the large Ballroom site. The trail climbs abruptly and is more visible on the return hike than on the outward trip to the Ballroom. Coming around a corner, there is an alcove visible on the left, but the right side view of the alcove with the Target ruins is startling.

The Target Ruins is well located to be seen, but not touched. It is one of the most attractive sites that is easy to get to in the Cedar Mesa area. The left side alcove that is visible first provides a place to climb up and get some different viewing angles. I’ve seen pictures that show a target pictograph inside the Target ruins, visible from high on the left side, but I couldn’t see it during my visit.

The left side alcove has a small structure that appears to be for storage. There is also a small target shaped petroglyph on the alcove wall. There also appeared to be another storage ruin in a smaller alcove to the left of the large left side alcove.

There is some minor rock art below the Target Ruins. I saw two turkey tracks and some white handprints. Below the handprints are some hard to see geometric designs that resemble the designs seen on pottery.

Between the Target Ruin and the Ballroom Cave, there is another vague and steep side trail leading to a small alcove. There is a small wall fragment in this alcove also. I climbed up here first, thinking this was going to be the Target Ruins site. The Upper Butler Wash Trail thus has five ruins sites to find. I spent 2:30 hours on this hike on a 65 F degree early May day.

Arch Canyon Walnut Knob

2011-05-04T11:18:00.000-07:00

The trailhead area for the Arch Canyon Trail is 2.5 miles north along the BLM road that is just west of Comb Ridge along Utah Scenic Route 95. This area is west of Blanding in southeast Utah. Walnut Knob is visible from the parking area high to the south. There isn’t a marked trail but the sandstone slope is walkable all the way up.

The Arch Canyon Trail leads 8 miles to two large arches, Cathedral and Angel. There are also several Ancestral Pueblo ruins sites to find, including the large Arch Canyons ruins that are only a short walk down the trail. This trailhead is also a starting point for a hike to Hotel Rock along the north rim of Arch Canyon.

Walnut Knob is known as a petroglyph site, but there is some rubble on the top of the large boulder and around the sides, making it look like a ruins site also. Boulder based ruin sites like this are common in the Canyons of the Ancients area in southwest Colorado.

There are three panels to view. The most eye catching shows what appears to be a large shield with an array of mountain sheep, horses with riders, and some feet prints. I arrived in mid afternoon as the sun was sweeping across the figures.

From this elevated position there are good views, particularly toward the north end of Comb Ridge. To the lower left of the shield figure, there is an interesting horned humanoid figure. There is a spiral in the lower left The Walnut Knob climb is about 200 feet above the canyon floor area. From above, it looks like a road goes past, but the access is confusing due to the Ute Land, No Trespassing signs along the BLM road.

The panel to the right of the main panel also appears to show a shield with several animal figures. The third panel to the left has a few good figures but also has some modern graffiti.

On the return hike I noticed a fairly large rubble pile ruins site that overlooks the creek at the beginning of the Arch Canyon Trail. Every hiker and driver heading up Arch Canyon walks directly below this site. The location is interesting as it has a direct line of site with the Walnut Knob site and is only a few minutes walk from the large Arch Canyon ruins site.

There is one spot where some of the wall structure is still visible. The overall shape appears to be circular, possibly a large diameter tower.

It is possible to find a view point where the rubble pile ruins, the Walnut Knob, and the Arch Canyon creek are in the same view. My hike to the Walnut Knob took 1:10 hours on a 68 F degree early May afternoon.

Cold Spring Cave Trail

2011-03-24T13:58:00.000-07:00

The Cold Spring Cave Trail is one of the several short hikes on the east side of the massive Navajo sandstone Comb Ridge, west of the town of Bluff in southeast Utah. I started my hike 7.6 miles north of the south gate of Butler Wash Road, then a short distance down a bumpy side road.

This starting point is less than 0.5 miles north of the trail head area for the Monarch Cave Trail. None of these interesting trails are pointed out with signs.

I noticed that Bluff has new signs at the edge of town indicating the town was founded in 650 AD. The Comb Ridge area was the home of some of the early settlers. From the trailhead area, the Cold Spring alcove is clearly visible, even some of the wall sections of the structures are visible. The trail leading across Butler Wash is easier to follow than most of the other trails and not much of the route crosses bare sandstone before reaching the canyon mouth area.

At the entrance to the canyon, there is a rubble pile ruin perched on a high point on the opposite side of the canyon mouth. There isn’t an easy way to cross over and look closer, though it looks like it is feasible. The location of this site is interesting as it appears to be a lookout point. I haven’t noticed other ruins structures positioned like this in the Comb Ridge area.

The alcove is very long with small wall sections along the lower end and larger structures in the upper and deeper end. Besides the remaining structures, Cold Spring seems to have more interesting features than many of these sites. It took me about 0:30 minutes to arrive at the alcove.

Cold Spring is particularly rich in hand print pictographs. There are several panels spread all along the canyon walls and they use a larger variety of colors than is usually seen.

The other prominent feature here is the number of small grooves that appear to be for grinding. These small side by side grooves are a different style than the larger grinding stones that are on display at the major sites at Mesa Verde and other interpreted sites. One of these several grinding stations has petroglyph images built into the horizontal surface.

Near the entrance to the deep part of the cave there is a circular kiva where some of the stonework looks to be well preserved with some of the plaster still in place. The water source for the site is in the deepest part of the cave. Water can be seen seeping from rocks and supports a growth of maidenhair ferns, and trickles down into a small basin.

Near the kiva on the right side of the deep part of the cave there is an historic inscription from 1892. At Mesa Verde, Canyon de Chelly and other places on Cedar Mesa, some of the early explorers left inscriptions. This is the only one I know of in the Comb Ridge area.

I visited the Cold Spring Cave for about 1:00 hour. On the return hike I explored the area to the north, following cow trails across the drainages for about 1 mile and scanning the visible alcoves with binoculars. There is more to find in this area.

My total hike with this side trip was 3:30 hours. It was 43 F degrees when I started at 11:30 AM and 56 degrees at the 3:00 PM finish on a sunny late March day. I saw two other hiking groups during my hike, a total of seven visitors. The parking area for the nearby Monarch Cave Trail had several vehicles with tents pitched.

Double Stack Trail at Comb Ridge

2011-03-02T08:14:00.000-08:00

The Double Stack Trail is one of the several hikes on the east side of the Navajo sandstone Comb Ridge, a few miles west of Bluff in southeast Utah. I started my hike 3.8 miles north of the south gate on Butler Wash Road, then a short distance west on the side road that leads to the edge Butler Wash.

From this starting point, there is a large alcove visible directly west. I hiked toward the alcove, crossing the overgrown Butler Wash using cow trails, then walking on the sandstone and descending into the drainage. This isn’t the most direct route for finding the Double Stack Ruins site, but makes a loop route and allows for some exploration and good views.

The more direct route is to hike northwest toward the next canyon to the north. The benefit of going directly west is that the upper edge of the visible alcove appears to be an obscure arch.

Climbing out of the canyon to the left of the alcove, I looked to see if I could hike back down the next canyon to the north. That route leads toward the ruins site but has pour over points that looked too risky get around and I climbed back up to the sandstone area between the adjacent canyons. Walking down the bare rocks toward the rim, there is a survey monument at the section corners, helpful if your map shows section corners.

Continuing, I found an overlook view of the Double Stack Ruins and there was an easy route to descend down slightly to the east of the overlook. From above, there are some standing walls on the lower left and an upper level structure to the right.

Approaching from the right, there is a line of large boulders surrounding a mound of dirt. The largest wall remaining section appears on the right. There is a large log still in place, supported on the support columns of a kiva.

On the back wall, there is a set of small storage like structures. Above these small boxes are red and white hand prints. I saw one other set of handprints further to the right. The trail in the canyon bottom was visible close to the ruins site but I lost track of it near the canyon mouth. There are at least two conical arrangements of Juniper logs along the canyon bottom trail east of the Double Stack Ruins. Other structures I’ve seen like this were referred to as Navajo sweat lodges, but these could be something else.

My total loop hike took 3:10 hours on a 56 F degree early March day and I carried and drank 2 liters of water. The return hike from the ruins site took about 0:40 minutes, so this can be a short hike if you find the direct route.

Lime Creek Hike in Valley of the Gods

2010-12-08T10:15:00.000-08:00

The Valley of the Gods is a desert area of eroded sandstone buttes and pinnacles along the south edge of Cedar Mesa in southeast Utah. It is similar to the nearby and more famous Monument Valley, but provides a more natural experience. Most visitors travel the 17 mile gravel scenic drive, stopping at the pullover view points to view the spectacular formations. There aren’t any marked hiking trails but the area is open for hiking and camping.

I entered at the east entrance, about 15 miles west of Bluff, Utah on US Highway 163. I drove about 4.5 miles north and stopped at the view point that is east of Battleship Rock and Rooster Butte. At this view point there is a closed road leading east toward a fence. The road turns and follows the fence and there is a gate about 0.5 miles south.

Rather than use the gate, I found a place to slide under the fence and hiked east toward the formation called Pyramid Peak. To the north are the cliffs of Cedar Mesa. The vegetation is treeless with grasses, Snakeweed, Blackbrush, Mormon Tea, and Prickly Pear Cactus. Along the small washes there is some Rabbitbrush and Cliff Rose. At the east entrance to Valley of the Gods, there is a crossing of Lime Creek. The creek flows from the northeast and is a short distance to the east of Pyramid Peak.

The abandoned road passes to the south and east of Pyramid Peak and can be used as a trail, heading for a crossing of Lime Creek. There is enough water in Lime Creek to support Cottonwood trees along the banks. There is another fence with a gate to pass through before the creek corssing. The abandoned road heads back southeast after the creek crossing. I stayed north following the many segments of cow trails that continue up the canyon, close to the creek banks toward the cliffs.

I thought the cliffs would be a dead end, but the creek makes a bend to the west and the environment changes from desert to a narrow moist canyon. I thought that with the water available here there might be some Ancestral Pueblo ruins sites along the south facing canyon face, but I didn’t see anything. I turned around after 2:10 hours of hiking at a pour off point that requires some scrambling to get past.

On the return hike I found a view where both the Valley of the Gods and the Monument Valley spires are visible. I hiked on a sunny mild 50 F degree early December day. In summer when most visitors arrive it can be too hot for much hiking, but this day was perfect. My total hike was 4:20 hours for about 8 miles.

Mexican Hat Rock

2010-11-20T05:31:00.000-08:00

Mexican Hat is a small town on the banks of the San Juan River about half way between Bluff, Utah and Monument Valley Tribal Park at the Arizona state line. About 3 miles north of town on Highway 163 is the Mexican Hat rock formation.

There is a highway sign for Mexican Hat Rock at a good gravel road that leads the short distance down the west side of the formation to a dirt turnoff with some parking space.

From the parking area there are some rough roads that provide a short easy hike up for a closer look. I stopped at the easy level, but climbing up higher is feasible and equipped rock climbers can get on top of the hat. The hat part is described as 60 feet across and 12 feet thick.

The Mexican Hat is visible from the San Juan River by the rafters floating past. There are also good views of the unusual tilted and eroded geological layers on the south side of the river.

John’s Canyon Rim Trail

2010-11-02T14:15:00.000-07:00

John’s Canyon is tributary to the San Juan River downstream of the Goosenecks State Park in southeast Utah. The access is along County Road 244, a north turn off of Utah Route 316, the paved road that leads to the State Park. The access road passes below the Muley Point Lookout point on the southwest side of the Cedar Mesa area.

I drove 15 miles along County Road 244 to a flowing creek crossing and started hiking there. The road is drivable in a Subaru, but gets a little rougher the further you go. There is a metal gate to open and close after 7.0 miles. It took me about 1:00 hour to travel the 15 miles. I hiked west along the same road along the north rim of the inner canyon. It looks like a hiker could also hike down into the inner canyon or hike up canyon.

The attraction of the north rim is the several petroglyph panels along the way. John’s Canyon, is this area has some massive sandstone cliffs sitting of softer eroded layers. The level area has Mormon Tea, another desert shrub that I think is Blackbrush, Prickly Pear cactus, a few scattered Juniper trees, and some desert grasses. There are cottonwood trees near the flowing creek.

After about 1:00 hour of hiking there is a boulder with some petroglyph figures on the south and west faces. The south face had some sheep figures and the west face had what I thought were lion tracks.

The second panel that I saw arrived after 1:25 hours of hiking. The trail makes a curvy descent and the upright boulder is where the route straightens out. This panel has an assortment of figures. I didn’t see any ruins near these panels, but there some possible rock shelter areas among these boulders.

Ten minutes past this site, practically within sight, is another boulder with art work on at least two faces, the most on the west face. All of these boulders were close to and easy to spot from the trail.

These petroglyph sites are along the edge of the gradually deepening inner canyon. Down below there is some flowing water, but it doesn’t look like these is any easy access to the bottom. Directly across the canyon, the road into the area is visible.

I turned around after this third site. My return hike took 1:30 hours for a total hike of 3:40 hours for 7 or 8 miles. It was a 60 F degree early November day and I carried 3 liters of water. On the return drive I noticed another panel along the road a short distance west of the metal gate.

Mule Canyon North Fork Trail

2010-10-05T04:50:00.000-07:00

The Mule Canyon North Fork Trail is a parallel route to the nearby and somewhat more popular South Fork Trail in Mule Canyon in the Cedar Mesa area of southeast Utah. The trail head for the North Fork is about 0.5 miles past the starting point of the South Fork Trail.

There is a small parking area just before a narrow wooden bridge. Both are north off of Scenic Byway, Route 95 west of Blanding and a short distance east of the roadside Mule Canyon Indian Ruins site. The Mule Canyon trails are among the canyon areas where BLM is charging a modest $2 per hiker permit fee.

The North Fork route mostly follows the creek bed with some trail segments around the spots where pools of water form. The canyon starts out shallow and gets deeper up canyon. This canyon environment includes tall Ponderosa Pines and a few Douglas Firs along with the Pinon Pines and Utah Junipers.

After about 20 or 30 minutes of walking, there is a small one room Ancestral Pueblo Ruin on the right under a rock overhang. This site appeared to be a place where someone could have lived, rather than a storage place for grain. The canyon isn't very deep at this point and the site isn't very high above the creek. The left wall seemed particularly thick for a one story structure.

This part of the canyon has Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper Trees. On a day or two after some rainfall, there were many small pools of water in the creek bottom. The canyons in this area appear to be very dry, but I was impressed with how much water could have been collected after a storm event occurs.

About thirty minutes later, 1:00 hour into my hike, a granary structure is visible under a sandstone overhang high overhead. Along this trail segment, there is also a lot of Manzanita, an evergreen shrub with leathery leaves. I also saw some of the silvery Roundleaf Buffaloberry that is common near Natural Bridges National Monument. Along the canyon wall, there is some obvious water seepage between the layers of rock with some hanging garden type plants taking advantage of the moisture.

Below the granary is another creek level structure hidden in a small alcove. The room on the left had the roof woodwork holding together well and I saw some spiral petroglyphs in the black stained stone on the left.

It looked like the roof work of a circular kiva was directly in front of the two rooms. This site seems to be an example of what other interpreted sites call a unit structure, rectangular rooms and a kiva combination.

Another high level series of structures in visible another 0:30 minutes further up the canyon. I climbed up a little to get a closer view. There seemed to be a central residence structure with a storage structure on each side.

I was interested to see some flowing water trickling down the sandstone a short distance past the skyline ruins. All along this segment there are signs of seeping water between layers of sandstone. I turned around about 0:15 minutes past the skyline at a point where boulders blocked the trail and a pool of water makes climbing past the boulders inconvenient.

My return hike took 1:45 minutes without any stops. My total hike took 4:00 hours on a 72 F degree early October day, and I only saw two other hikers. I carried and drank 3 liters of water.

Whiskers Draw Trail

2010-09-11T06:35:00.000-07:00

The Whiskers Draw area in the Manti-La Sal National Forest can be accessed by turning north on the well marked South Cottonwood forest road, a few miles west of Blanding along Utah Route 95 in southeast Utah. After about 8 miles there is a forest road Y junction where I continued left for 2.6 miles to a vague jeep trail that heads south.

I started my hike at the jeep trail, which headed for a sandstone canyon rim and turned east. There are good views at the trail head area of the Abajo Mountains. The south facing canyon wall has many alcoves, some of them sheltering Ancestral Pueblo ruins sites.

Following the jeep road east was the wrong way to go for the relatively well known site I was looking for. The site I wanted to find is slightly west, near the head of a narrow side canyon, and is only visible from the long peninsula of rock that extends into the center of the canyon. Walking back west along the rim, there is a good view of the side canyon to explore.

After 2:00 hours of exploring the east end of this area, I arrived at the overlook of the double alcove site. It is feasible to get down closer to the site. There isn’t a marked trail that I could find, but walking further out along the rocky finger, there are trail segments through the forested sections, down to the canyon floor.

There are two smaller alcove sites about 300 yards down canyon from the double alcove site in the vicinity of the route down. Without any wandering, it should take less than an hour to get in position to visit these three sites.

The trail up to the double alcove site is along the creek bottom and the vegetation in this area is very thick. I think the thick vegetation here is mostly Hackberry trees and there were quite a few of them. Further down the canyon, there are Cottonwood trees and wide sagebrush fields.

The soil is very deep in the wider parts of the canyon, and there are deep eroded drainages. The mesa top areas and canyon sides has Pinon Pines and Utah Junipers. There is a trail segment that leads to the right side of the site.

There are several rooms and wall sections intact, lots of black soot on the sandstone walls, some timbers lying around. There isn’t a good view into the upper alcove from below.

The sites I visited had a variety of rock art, including a large red zig zag. There were also some red crescent figures that I thought were sheep and some red hand prints toward the left side of the site. I only visited one of the two small sites that were 300 yards down canyon. The small alcove I visited had two rooms and with several petroglyphs, including a human figure with a duck on its shoulders instead of a head, and a corn stalk figure.

I saw two more alcoves about 0.5 miles to the east of the double alcove site that had ruins in them, for a total of five in this area. This was the exploring I did first, before I found the site that I was actually looking for. At the end of the jeep trail there is a relatively gentle slope down and a vague trail up stream to an obvious large alcove on the west side a narrow side canyon.

Around the corner back downstream and west toward the main canyon, there is another large alcove with some rubble and minor wall fragments, and several examples of rock art, including some red side by side broad shouldered figures. This site also had some horse and cattle figures, and some of the artwork appeared to be done in black charcoal.

The hiking looked easier along the mesa top than down in the canyon bottom, due to the thick vegetation and very deep eroded washes, so I visited these two adjacent areas with separate fairly easy descents. My total hike in Whiskers Draw was 3:45 hours on a 74 F degree early September day. I carried 3 liters of water.

Lower Mule Canyon Trail

2010-05-25T13:24:00.000-07:00

The Lower Mule Canyon Trail enters the mouth of Mule Canyon as it makes a junction with Comb Wash on the west side of Comb Ridge in southeast Utah. The starting point is the campground area that is along the south side of Utah Scenic Route 95 just below the engineered notch in the massive Navajo sandstone wedge of Comb Ridge.

The ATV trail turnoff into Mule Canyon is about 0.8 miles south of Highway 95. I started at the campground and enjoyed the views south along Comb Ridge. The main county road can be driven further than I did and crosses a creek before the turnoff.

From the turnoff the trail passes along the Mule Canyon creek bottom, through an area that is thick with Cottonwood trees.

The trail crosses the creek twice before arriving after about 0.3 miles at a marked foot trail that loops around the first side canyon on the north side. There are three small Ancestral Pueblo ruins sites on the east side along the trail and another on the west side.

The first two ruins sites are small. The third site is the largest. I didn’t climb up to look closer but there may be some interesting features to this site.

The fourth site on the west side might be the first one that a hiker would spot as it is visible across the side canyon. Approaching from below, the most obvious structure disappears behind the ledge. There are also two other small structures above and to the left. Continuing on up canyon, there is another side canyon on the north side almost immediately. I didn’t see a trail going up the second side canyon, but there is a sandy hill at the mouth that allows a good view.

I didn’t see any ruins sites up the second side canyon, but the sandy hill had many gray pottery shards and a few with black on white designs. I also saw two reddish hard stones that looked like small sharp tools. There may be source of reddish chert in the area, perhaps in the first north side canyon. Chert breaks in a way that forms very sharp edges and it is very hard, a 7 on the Mohs scale. It doesn’t have much use today but was an important tool making material.

Further west the horse trail dips into the creek bottom, but I followed a vague ATV track that stayed closer to the north canyon wall. In this area there were many spring desert wildflowers in bloom including Cliff Rose and this spectacular Miribilis in the Four O’clock family (swcoloradowildflowers.com is an excellent source for wildflowers). There were also Single Leaf Ash trees, Roundleaf Buffaloberries, and I saw one Ponderosa Pine mixed in with the Cottonwoods. The Lower Mule Canyon area has a few Tamarisk trees but they haven’t taken over as they do is some areas.

There is also a fifth ruins site near the point where Mule Canyon turns to the northwest. There is a double alcove with some wall sections still standing in both of the high alcoves. I continued further up canyon for another 0.5 miles. This next section of canyon appears to be dry and narrow, no water and no farming fields. Hiking much further, a hiker could approach the popular hiking areas that are at the upper end of Mule Canyon.

I turned around after 2:30 hours of hiking and it took me 1:25 hours to return to my starting point. My total hike took 4:10 hours for about 6 miles. It was a relatively cool 55 F degree late May day that started with some light rain that cleared quickly.

River Panel Trail

2010-05-19T03:12:00.000-07:00

The River Panel Trail is a 6 or 3 mile round trip into lower Butler Wash to the junction with the San Juan River. On the bluffs just east and upriver from the junction is a large petroglyph panel. The starting point is 0.2 miles south down the road that leads to the Bluff, Utah airport, five miles west of the town of Bluff on Highway 163 in southeast Utah.

I hiked the 6 mile version across the level desert area with spring wildflowers, but vehicles with 4WD or high clearance can follow the dirt road about 1.5 miles to the canyon rim and start there. The road has a few sandy spots and there is a confusing rocky area near the beginning. From the rim, the trail descends toward the wash bottom over some spots where the old trail construction with bricklike stones is obvious. There is a large alcove visible on the opposite side of the canyon. I looked at it from several angles with binoculars but couldn’t see anything that made it clear that it was a ruins site. It looks like there is a side trail leading into it.

The trail winds in and out of the wash bottom. There was some flowing water in mid May and the bottom was thick with Tamarisks, Russian Olives, Willows, and a few Cottonwood trees. The Fort Bluff Historic Site information mentions that the early pioneer cabins were constructed using the abundant Cottonwood trees. It now looks like the Cottonwoods have been pushed aside by the invasive Tamarisks and Olives. There were a lot of cactus flowers in bloom. I saw some Single Leaf Ash trees higher on the canyon sides. About 10 minutes before the junction with the San Juan River there is an alcove with a small ruins site on the west side.

The petroglyph panel faces the San Juan River just east of the river junction. Most visitors will probably arrive via the popular rafting trips that start in nearby Bluff at the Sand Island boat launch. Sand Island also has a large petroglyph panel and the large Butler Wash Panel is only a few hundred yards downstream from the River Panel. This area is very rich in rock art sites.

There are several hundred images to view. Many are at eye level and some are higher in places where you wonder how they were able to work on them. Some of the higher level images include broad shouldered figures similar to the ones that stand out at the nearby Butler Wash Panel. There are four grooves that look like stone sharpeners mixed in with the images.

On the return hike I noticed a second small petroglyph panel on the west side of Butler Wash just before the canyon junction with the San Juan River. There is a side trail leading up. This side trail is more noticeable on the return hike.

There aren’t as many images at the second panel, but it includes an interesting one that looks like two stalks of corn. My total hike to the River Panel took 3:10 hours for the six miles that I hiked. The segment from the Butler Wash rim and back took 2:10 for 3 miles and the panel viewing. It was a 75 F degree mid May day and I drank 2 liters of water.

Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Utah

Fort Bluff Trail

2010-05-18T05:38:00.000-07:00

The Fort Bluff Trail visits the Fort Bluff Historic Site along Highway 163 in Bluff in southeast Utah. Fort Bluff was the work of the pioneers on the incredible 1880 Hole in the Rock Expedition that started in Escalante, Utah and blazed their own trail across the very difficult southern Utah wilderness. The Hole in the Rock route was supposed to be a shortcut, avoiding the hazardous Indian country to the south and the longer route through Moab. The planned six week trip ended up taking six months.

After getting their crops planted, the settlers constructed small cabins from local cottonwood trees, placing them in close proximity to form a protective formation. In 2010 there is an ongoing project to reconstruct the one room cabins and fill them with historic artifacts. The cabins surround a central plaza where there are examples of antique wagons.

After 1883, many of the settlers moved to different plots around the town. The Barton family received a plot on the Fort site and expanded their house to include several of the other cabins. The Barton cabin is the only one of the originals that remains. There is an interpretive sign by the Barton well that describes how the settlers originally tried to use San Juan River water but found it so hard and muddy that it had to be treated and allowed to settle overnight. Wells were dug and water was found at depths of 16 to 20 feet.

Hikers in the south Comb Ridge area will recognize the name on one of the cabins, of George B. Hobbs, one of the scouts of the Hole in the Rock Expedition. There is an interpretive sign along Highway 163 near Hobbs Wash that describes the difficult night of December 27, 1879 when he and three others took shelter in the area about 5 miles west of Bluff. There is also an interpretive sign mentioning George Hobbs on the west side of Comb Ridge at Navajo Springs on the River House Trail leading to an Ancestral Pueblo Ruins site, the Butler Wash Petroglyph Panel, the Rincone Trading Post, and the notorious San Juan Hill.

Near the northeast corner of the Fort Bluff site is one of the original wagons used through the Hole in the Rock. There are also several handcarts in the same corner. I didn’t see an interpretive sign explaining the handcarts, but I believe they are intended as replicas of those used by the Handcart Companies during the emigrations from Iowa City, Iowa to Salt Lake City, mostly in 1856 and 1857. The Handcarts were used mostly by newly arrived European immigrants on the Oregon and Mormon Trails across Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming. The immigrants had to pull their possessions in the carts over difficult terrain, several river crossings, and up steep mountain slopes. Some of them started too late in the season and needed a heroic rescue from Salt Lake to make it through. I am guessing that some of these carts might be available in the future for visitors to try out for themselves.

Across the street from Fort Bluff is Jens Nielson’s house, built in the 1890’s. Jens was one of the leaders of the Hole in the Rock travelers and was also one of the 1856 Handcart migrants. He was a member of the Willie Company that had one of the most difficult crossings. Bluff area hikers might want to tip their hats when passing the Nielson house, for he covered a lot of difficult territory on foot in heroic fashion.

Kachina & Owachomo Loop Trail

2010-04-20T06:03:00.000-07:00

The Kachina & Owachomo Loop Trail is a 5.4 miles between two of the large bridges in Natural Bridges National Monument in southeast Utah. Three miles of the route is in Armstrong Canyon and the rest passes over the mesa top.

I started at the Kachina Bridge Trail Head. The trail from the canyon rim down to the bridge is 0.75 miles. The route is steep but there are steps and handrails installed to make the trip easier. Kachina Bridge has many Ancestral Pueblo petroglyphs on both sides of the base and there is a small unusual ruins site on the far side.

The loop trail up Armstrong Canyon toward Owachomo Bridge branches off about halfway to the bottom, so a visit to Kachina requires a backtrack back up to continue. There is also a loop trail up White Canyon to Sipapu Bridge. From the parking area of Kachina Bridge, a small circular storage ruins can be spotted on a ledge above the trail toward Owachomo. That ruins is hidden from sight along the trail even as you pass right below it.

In the first mile of hiking a large alcove appears on the left. With binoculars, some wall structures can be spotted. There was a three person crew that appeared to be studying this ruins site on the day I hiked past. The sunny alcove was perched above steep cliffs and finding a way to get closer would take some searching.

In mid April after a heavy snow year there were many pools of water in the canyon bottom. There are some patches of sagebrush indicating good soils for farming, but the fields were small. There were cottonwood trees in places, along with Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper on the canyon sides.

In the Natural Bridges area silver green Roundleaf Buffaloberry shrub is common. There is an example of it with some interpretive information on the short botany trail at the park Visitor Center. This plant isn’t seen much in the other canyon areas of the Four Corners. I also saw some of the evergreen Fremont Barberry along the trail.

About 1.0 mile from Owachomo Bridge is a rock formation called the Shoe. The Shoe has a small arch. To get a good view of the arch requires a short detour off the trail, staying high rather than dropping down to the canyon floor.

Below the shoe is the Shoe Pictograph Panel. The view from the trail is about 30 feet below the intricate art work. The long rows of triangles that look like shark’s teeth are the most eye catching. There are also spirals and many humanoid figures. There may be a ruins site on the ledge up near the panel, but I didn’t try to climb up.

Most visitors to Owachomo Bridge stop when they are underneath it. There is an obscure trail that continues across the canyon and climbs the opposite side for some good views. This trail looks like it was constructed 50 years ago and hasn’t been maintained since then.

Owachomo spans 180 feet and is 106 feet high. It is one of the most graceful rock spans in the region. Climbing back to the rim, it is 2.2 miles along the Mesa Top Trail back to the Kachina parking area. The Mesa Top Trail passes through Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper forest and climbs over some rocky sandstone outcrops. In a few places there are good views toward the canyons.

I spent about 5:00 hours for the 5.4 mile loop. I did some backtracking in the area around the Shoe Panel and spent some time climbing in the area across from Owachomo. A hiker could also spend time viewing the rock art near Kachina Bridge. I carried and drank 3 liters of water on a 65 F degree mid April day.

Cedar Mesa Pot Shards-Edge of the Cedars Museum

2010-01-21T05:39:00.001-08:00

Hikers in the Cedar Mesa area will often come across pottery shards near the many ruins sites. The Edge of the Cedars State Park museum in Blanding, Utah has a large collection of pottery with interpretive information explaining what is known about the manufacture and styles of pottery pieces that have been found. The presentation here emphasizes the basic colors of gray, white and red.

Grayware pottery gets its color from being fired in a low oxygen atmosphere. The most common were jars, with bowls and effigies being rare. The first Grayware, made from 500-700 AD, were made by building up coils and scraping the surface smooth. Many pieces resembled the dried gourds that were used as containers previously.
Later Grayware showed more indented corrugated patterns with the rims of pots became more flaring. Whiteware started about the same time as Grayware. These vessels were painted with a thin white clay wash called a slip, and then painted with black or left white. The early works were deep bowls with a design toward the bottom of the bowl.

Southeast Utah was a center for the production of San Juan Redware from 725 to 1050 AD. After 1050 the center for Redware shifted toward the Kayenta area and the newer styles were imported into southeast Utah. The Redwares were made from similar clays as the Whitewares, with the red color forming as the material was fired in a more oxidizing atmosphere. Abajo Red on Orange was the earliest of the San Juan Redwares.

Bluff Red on Orange was first discovered near the town of Bluff and was widely traded through the Four Corners area. The Deadman’s Black on Red added a polished dark red coating and was also widely traded. There is a good display of representative styles from around the Four Corners. The Chaco, Mesa Verde, and Kayenta styles are shown along with explanations of the differences. Along the trails we only see fragments but with this introduction we can at least make some guesses.

There is a large enclosed display of dozens of pots with a computer display in front. The computer allows the visitor to select a specific pot from the collection and view the details of that pot, such as style and date and in some cases where it was found. Near the main entrance of the museum is a display of discovery stories. Occasionally, a hiker will find a large intact artifact and these stories are told next to the object itself.

Edge of the Cedars Pueblo in Winter

2010-01-12T15:33:00.000-08:00

The pueblo ruins site at Edge of the Cedars State Park in Blanding in southeast Utah is easy to access in winter despite heavy snow.

This is a site that appears to have had three lives. The first occupation lasted from 825 to 950 and the second from 1050 to 1125. In the early 1200s there was some remodeling with the site thought to be vacant during the intervals in between.

Then as now there were advantages to this location including the fine views of the nearby Abajo Mountains. The Edge refers to the biological boundary between the sagebrush fields and the Pinon Pine and Juniper forests. The trail here is short and visitors have to pass though the museum to get to the ruins site.

The excavated sections of the site show part of the Great House. About 17 rooms and two kivas are visible. There is an unexcavated Great Kiva on the south side, appearing as a circular depression.

The abutment joints of walls show that the site was remodeled over a period of time. The stones used in building the site are a mix of flat tabular sandstone that had to be carried a long distance and more local chunky rocks. In the chunky layers, small chinking stones were used.

The west kiva has been reconstructed and can be entered by climbing down a short ladder. During the winter, with deep snow on the ground, these deeper structures would have offered shelter from the cold. The fireplace and air circulation features aren’t found in the regular room blocks.

This pueblo site is exposed to the elements while many of the other sites to visit in the Cedar Mesa region are sheltered in alcoves. Other open sites in the area are the Mule Canyon site west along Utah Scenic By Way 95, and the Bluff Great House site near the town of Bluff.

There is also a sculpture near the ruins site that replicates some of the archaeoastronomy sites in the southwest. In some locations, spears of light hit spirals or other symbols on the significant days of the solar year. One site that I know of in the region is the panel near the Holly Ruins Group in Hovenweep National Monument. Chaco Canyon is also a site where ancient sky gazers were active.

Cedar Mesa Scenic By-Way Highlights

2009-12-15T05:31:00.000-08:00

The southeast Utah Cedar Mesa area looks like a large empty area on a large scale map. Natural Bridges National Monument is out there, west along Scenic By-Way 95, on the way to Lake Powell, but even driving through, the area only looks like a large forest with some canyons cutting through.

Heading west from Blanding, there are no signs that anyone lives here now, but centuries ago there were quite a few residents. The first clue is the roadside Butler Ruins Trail. This is a 0.5 mile interpretive trail to an Ancestral Pueblo ruins site, with the trail guide pointing out a dozen or so of the plants that were available to the people that lived here.

There is a small natural bridge near the overlook, but you have to move away from the fenced overlook to see it. The ruins site is on the east side of the sandstone hogback called Comb Ridge that runs north and south for 80 miles. The Butler Wash site is a representative of the many unpublicized sites and trails along the east side of Comb Ridge. At the same trail head, there is another unnoticed trail to the east leading north toward a site called Ballroom Cave.

Continuing west, the road passes through an engineered notch in the massive sandstone wedge and descends toward Comb Wash. At the lowest point, a dirt road runs north and south. About 2.5 miles north along the dirt road is the entrance to Arch Canyon, one of Utah's most scenic canyons.

There is a 4WD road traveling up the canyon toward two spectacular arches, Cathedral Arch and Angel Arch. It is a long eight mile hike to see these arches, but in the first ten minutes of hiking there is the large Arch Canyon ruins site. At the same trail head, there is also a trail along the north canyon rim to Hotel Rock, another interesting destination.

Further west is the roadside Mule Canyon pueblo site, well developed for visitors. There is a tower with a tunnel connection to the kiva at this site. We see similar tower and kiva connections at Mesa Verde. The Cedar Tree Tower and Kiva on Chapin Mesa and at Badger House on Wetherill Mesa there are similar connections.

This site represents the Ancestral Pueblo culture at its height, spreading across southern Utah. Hardly anyone lives in this area now, yet 750 years ago the area was thriving. Nearby the roadside site are trails up the north and south forks of Mule Canyon. The south fork trail has a site that is very popular with photographers.

The Natural Bridges Monument features three natural stone arches over waterways with a system of trails leading down and between them. There are some ruins sites to find here also, though they are not publicized.

The Cedar Mesa area is so rich in trails and hidden ruins sites that much more of its territory could be part of a National Monument. Just to the south of Natural Bridges is the Grand Gulch Primitive Area, another canyon area with trails leading to spectacular views and interesting cultural sites.

Arch Canyon to Hotel Rock Side Canyon

2009-11-05T05:36:00.000-08:00

The Hotel Rock Side Canyon is about 2.5 miles along the Arch Canyon Trail, west of Blanding in southeast Utah. The Arch Canyon trail head is 2.5 miles north along a dirt road from Highway 95 just west of the massive sandstone wedge of Comb Ridge.

The Arch Canyon Trail is a 4WD route that runs for 8 miles to two large arches, Cathedral Arch and Angel Arch. The canyon bottom has year round water and there are Ancestral Pueblo Ruins sites along the way. Near the beginning of the trail is the large Arch Canyon Ruins site, with several standing walls, rubble piles and petroglyphs. At about 1.5 miles, there is a small alcove site that is easy to visit.

The ruins sites tend to be on the south facing side in most locations to catch the winter sun. My hike in early November was on a warm sunny day. I noticed that on the shady north facing side of the canyon, there were still patches of snow from an early season winter storm the previous week. Even though the temperature was very mild, without the sun the microclimate is chilly.

There is another good ruins site at about 2.5 miles, just before the canyon junction with the Hotel Rock side canyon. This site blends into the canyon wall so well that it is easy to miss. The main hint is the side road from the 4WD trail that leads over below it.

Just to the right of the main structure on the same level is a well preserved storage ruin. I noticed the the door of the storage ruin before seeing the main structure. There are additional small wall fragments to the lower right of this upper level pair of ruins.

The Hotel Rock Trail starts at the same trail head as the Arch Canyon Trail and climbs along the north canyon rim to a large rock outcrop with small ruins in a side by side arrangement. Below the Hotel Rock, there is a view of the side canyon that makes a junction with Arch Canyon. I turned up the side canyon, searching for more ruins sites and whatever else might be interesting.

It didn’t look like many hikers or horseback riders come this way. The canyon bottom is walkable but I didn’t see any foot prints or any signs of a trail. The canyon bottom is narrow, without any room for farming fields and I didn’t see any permanent water. I hiked up the side canyon for about 1:00 hour, making about 1 mile and didn’t notice any ruins sites, and didn’t get far enough to get a view of Hotel Rock from below.

There weren’t any major obstacles and a hiker could go further than I did, but I didn’t find any good hiking destinations except for wild canyon scenery. My total time on this hike was 4:15 hours for about 7 miles. I carried 3 liters of water on a 60 F blue sky early November day.

Mule Canyon Towers Trail

2009-11-03T17:26:00.001-08:00

The Mule Canyon Towers Trail is a 0.5 mile walk along a rough 4WD road to a canyon head site that features several circular Ancestral Pueblo structures. The turnoff from the south side of Utah Route 95 is at mile post 102.2 west of Blanding and Comb Ridge in southeast Utah.

There aren’t any road signs or interpretive information for this site. It is similar to some of the Hovenweep and Canyons of the Ancients sites along the Utah and Colorado Border with most of the structures perched on the rim at the head of a canyon. There is a spring at the canyon head that provides water to the site. I could hear water dripping down the canyon the whole time of my visit.

The structures are arrayed on both sides of the canyon head. At least four of the circular buildings still have wall sections standing, with several other collapsed rubble piles.

The walking along the rim is easy between the towers. The canyon cliffs are very steep along the edge and there is a deep alcove directly under the poor off at the canyon head. I didn’t see any easy routes down into the canyon here. The upper Mule Canyon area has several other ruins sites near and along Highway 95. A developed pueblo with a large kiva has easy visitor access and the North and South Fork Mule Canyon trails are popular.

Walking along the south facing rim, there are five or six small alcove sites visible. The below the rim area is very ledgy and the sites are on different levels.

I walked several hundred yards east along the south facing rim for different angles of the alcove sites. The cliffs are very steep along the rim and I didn’t see any routes into the canyon above the sites. The tower at the head of the canyon stands out as a lookout point for this community. I noticed one set of small storage ruins across on the north facing canyon side.

The terrain near this site is scattered Pinon Pines and Utah Junipers with sagebrush fields. The canyon area is very deep and rugged but the area surrounding the canyon is mostly level and it would have been easy to travel to the nearby sites and the farming fields. I parked near the Highway turnoff and walked the 0.5 miles to and from the site. I spent about 1:30 hours total here on a 50 F degree early November blue sky morning.

Hotel Rock Trail

2009-10-07T10:55:00.001-07:00

The Hotel Rock Trail is a 6 mile round trip along the north rim of Arch Canyon in the Cedar Mesa area of southeast Utah. It is a well known difficult 4WD drive route that is also a good hike to a very scenic small Ancestral Pueblo ruins site.

The trail head is the same as the Arch Canyon Trail. The parking area is 2.5 miles north of Utah Highway 95 just west of the sandstone wedge Comb Ridge, west of Blanding. About 100 yards down the Arch Canyon Trail there is a road splitting off to the right that starts to climb out of the canyon bottom area. There isn’t a sign that identifies this as the route to Hotel Rock. About 2.5 miles along the Arch Canyon Trail there is a large side canyon on the north side that leads toward the Hotel Rock area, but the ruin isn’t visible from below.

The lower part of the route climbs steeply and is fairly easy to follow. In the first mile there is a short side trail leading to the rim with a good view up Arch Canyon. The main route makes a right turn that is easy to miss. I had to search around a little to get back on track. At about 1.5 miles there is a circular turnaround point that is also at a view spot overlooking a short side canyon. It is not immediately clear where the trail continues without looking around. This view point has a small arch on the rim.

The Arch Canyon Trail down below leads to two large arches after about 8 miles. There is also the large Arch Canyon Ruins site in the early part of the trail and several small ruins sites in the canyon walls. The canyon bottom seems to have year round water and the trail crosses the creek many times.

The last 1.5 miles of the way up are more level and pass through Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper forest. The Hotel Rock formation is visible from about a half mile away and it towers over the surrounding terrain. There are several small structures side by side facing the east and they wind around to the north side and there is another small structure on the west side. There is also a small arch above and to the right of the small structures.

It is easy to get close and look inside. The views from the ruins site back to the east are very good. From this elevated spot, the LaPlata Mountains and Sleeping Ute Mountain are visible on the horizon far to the east. The Abajo Mountains slightly north are clearly visible. The elevation rises about 1200 feet from the trail head, enough to see over the jagged Comb Ridge.

The climb up took me 2:15 hours with stops at the rim view points. I spent about 0:50 minutes looking around the ruins site, including a walk on the west side and looking down into the side canyon there. The return hike took 1:25 hours without any stops for a total hike of 4:30 hours. I carried 2 liters of water on a 65 F degree early October blue sky day. I didn’t see any other hikers or vehicles on the Hotel Rock Trail but there were some groups on the Arch Canyon Trail.

Kachina Bridge Ruins Trail

2009-09-06T05:54:00.000-07:00

The Kachina Bridge Trail is 0.75 miles with 350 feet elevation change to one of the three large natural bridges in Natural Bridges National Monument in southeast Utah. On the opposite canyon wall past the bridge opening is a hidden ruins site with many examples of rock art.

The Kachina Bridge is 210 feet high with a span of 204 feet. The top of the bridge is 44 feet wide and 93 feet thick. Along the main trail wall there are some faint petroglyphs. Through the bridge on the upstream side there appeared to be two flute player images. The Kachina Bridge is the middle of three bridges and can be visited directly from the rim or as part of a loop hike from one of the other two large bridges.

The short side trail to the ruins site isn’t pointed out and there is a sandy hill to climb. The site is small and the structures are unusual. There are two circular structures and a small conical storage bin. There is a trail box at the beginning of the site that offers some interpretive comments. The two circular structures don’t show any sign of ever having had roofs, so the site is thought to have had some special use.

This area is rich with pictographs and petroglyphs. There are quite a few red handprints. The sandstone slabs that are in front of the site also have petroglyphs carved into them. The somewhat famous petroglyph that resembles a dinosaur is on the main trail side of Kachina Bridge on the down canyon side. The petroglyphs around the dinosaur are very faint. I didn’t notice it until I looked at my pictures later.

Horse Collar Ruins Trail

2009-09-03T05:43:00.000-07:00

The Horse Collar Ruins Trail refers to the White Canyon section of loop trail from Sipapu Bridge to Kachina Bridge in Natural Bridges National Monument in southeast Utah.

The total loop hike between the two large bridges along the canyon and over the mesa top is 5.4 miles. The Horse Collar site is closer to Sipapu Bridge and I started my hike there.

There is a 0.3 mile Horse Collar Ruins Overlook Trail along the Bridge View Loop Road. From above the two units of Horse Collar are visible far below. This ruins site is about 0.8 miles down the canyon from Sipapu Bridge just past the canyon junction with Deer Canyon.

The Horse Collar refers to the shape of the doors in the south unit. The south unit is considered to be unusual in that there is a square kiva and a round kiva at the same site. Round kivas are typical of southwest Colorado and southeast Utah while square is typical of northern Arizona.

This ruins site is easy to miss along the canyon bottom trail. It sits on top of a shelf with some steep cliffs below and is most easily noticeable when traveling from Sipapu from Kachina. The north unit can be spotted from the slightly elevated area above the canyon bottom.

There is a vague side trail that approaches through a thick patch of oak but I didn’t see an easy way to get up onto the ruins shelf. Even though I was immediately below the famous south unit I couldn’t see it.

Directly across the canyon from the Horse Collar Ruins is the large Indian Foot Arch. This arch appears to be below the overlook point but isn’t very visible from up there.

About 1 mile past the Horse Collar Ruins and Indian Foot Arch a small granary ruin is visible. Soon the Kachina Bridge comes into view. Look for petroglyphs on both sides of Kachina Bridge and also look along the canyon wall on the opposite side from the trail back toward the rim.

I saw another small arch high on the east rim further down canyon. There is also a small arch along the trail climbing back to the rim above Kachina Bridge.

The distance between Sipapu and Kachina Bridges is about 2.4 miles. My total time for the 5.4 mile loop including side trips was 4:20 hours on an 80 F day in late August.

An Archaeological Survey of Natural Bridges National Monument Southeastern Utah

Sipapu Bridge Ruins Trail

2009-09-02T05:49:00.001-07:00

The Sipapu Natural Bridge is one of the three very large bridge formations in Natural Bridges National Monument in the Cedar Mesa area of southeast Utah. The trail from the rim to the bridge is 0.6 miles and descends about 500 feet.

Sipapu Bridge is very massive at 220 feet high, with a 268 foot span. The bridge is 31 feet wide and 53 feet thick. The main park trail system features hiking between Sipapu and Kachina Bridge along the bottom of White Canyon and also on the mesa top for a 5.6 mile loop. There is also a trail that goes up the canyon about 0.7 miles to a small ruins site. There aren’t any signs that point out this trail.

The small structures sit in a south facing curve of the twisty canyon high enough above the creek to avoid flooding. The canyon bottom is lush with willows and cottonwood trees and there are patches of Gambel Oaks. There also grassy areas and the soil seems to be sandy.

It looks like there is a squarish possible kiva and a small room block and some small storage bins. There is also a small granary high and to the right of the main structures with a couple of old timbers lying across the top of the kiva. The canyon walls are very steep here and it’s not clear where any travel to the rim would occur. The canyon rims here are dry so maybe there was no need to go there.

To the left of the structures there is a panel of white pictographs featuring some large figures. It took me about 20 minutes to arrive at this site from the Sipapu Bridge. The total side trip took about 50 minutes on an 80 F degree late August day.

Monarch Trail at Comb Ridge

2009-08-29T05:02:00.000-07:00

The Monarch Trail is one of the better known trails of the otherwise obscure group of trails on the east side on Comb Ridge in southeast Utah.

Comb Ridge is an 80 mile long wedge of Navajo Sandstone that was an historic barrier to travel during the pioneer era. In the Ancestral Pueblo era the eroded east side offered south facing alcoves that were used as foundations for building sites.

The trail head area is 7.2 miles north of the south gate along Butler Wash Road, then left on a short side road. There are no signs to aid visitors in this area. The Butler Wash Road is a few miles west of the town of Bluff. There seem to be two turnoffs within 0.1 miles of each other. I turned at the first one I came to, when I reached 7.2 miles, but the second one is in better position.

The canyon to look for has a south facing high level alcove that is visible once you get through the thick vegetation at the bottom of Butler Wash. The trail follows along the bottom of the canyon. Since I started a little south of where I should have I had to hike north along the sandstone to the edge of the canyon and look for the trail.

I was lucky to see other hikers below and made my way down to the right track. The trail in late August was somewhat overgrown with vegetation but was otherwise easy to follow. The Monarch ruins site is at the head of the canyon a little past the overhead large gash of an alcove.

The ruins site can be approached from the right or the left. Along the right side canyon wall there are quite a few minor petroglyphs. Closer to the ruins there are even some glyphs on the floor. The disadvantage to the right approach is short section where a slip might lead to fall down a steep slope.

There is also most of a large grinding stone on display along with some pottery shards and corn cobs. The large trash midden has a chain marking it off. There is a pool of water in front of the site, but it is hard to view.

To add to the impressive features here are numerous hand print pictographs, I didn’t enter the site from the treacherous right side. I looked at the easier looking left approach but that way appeared to be guarded by large patches of Poison Ivy.

The view from the ruins back down the canyon is lush with some large trees. I spent about 2:00 hours on this hike. The return without stopping took about 30 minutes. It was about 85 F degrees at mid day in late August and I carried 2 liters of water. It was a hot day but the distance is only about 1.5 miles round trip. There is shade from trees along the trail and comfortable places to sit in the alcove next to the ruins site.

Fish Mouth Trail at Comb Ridge

2009-08-28T05:46:00.000-07:00

The Fish Mouth Trail is located on the east side of the massive sandstone of Comb Ridge in southeast Utah a few miles west of the town of Bluff. The Fish Mouth alcove is probably the largest in the immediate area and one of the largest in the region. It is about a 1.0 mile hike from Butler Wash Road up the curving small canyon that descends from below the gaping mouth. The trail head is about 12.6 miles north of the south Butler Wash gate and the Fish Mouth is easily visible from the road. There are four Ancestral Pueblo ruins sites to find along the Fish Mouth Trail. The first site is small and along the right in the first 10 minutes of the hike.

The trail is somewhat braided with cow paths and in late August the lush growth obscures some of the sections. There are two large alcove ruins sites almost side by side, both facing toward the south.

The first of the two sites has parts of several structures still standing. There seemed to be a large amount of soot on the ceiling of this site. The structures on the left side of the site seemed a little unusual.

After viewing the first of these two I couldn’t see where the trail continued up the small canyon, but saw a side trail that climbed up on the bare sandstone and climbed up toward the Fish Mouth. Looking back at the alcove, I saw a wall section on top of the canyon rim, a little to the left. The upper wall section seemed to be by itself, no other rubble near it.

There is a deep chasm between the good view point and the Fish Mouth that I didn’t try to cross. I couldn’t see any ruins structures inside Fish Mouth despite the very large size. Moving over to the edge of the canyon and looking back I saw the second of the two alcoves.

I made my way back down to the canyon bottom and worked further up the canyon to the second alcove site. This site didn’t have as many structures and seemed to have less soot on the ceiling. I didn’t see any rock art at either of these sites. The trail continues up toward the base of the Fish Mouth, but I chose to return. My return hike from the alcoves took about 20 minutes and my total hike for the 2 mile round trip was 1:40 hours. It was about 90 F degrees on a late August afternoon and I had 2 liters of water.

River House Ruins Trail at Comb Ridge

2009-06-03T05:23:00.000-07:00

The River House Ruins Trail follows a sandy 4WD road along the southwest side of Comb Ridge for 4 miles to the San Juan River in southeast Utah about 7 miles west of the town of Bluff.

Besides the River House Ancestral Pueblo Ruins there are several historic sites along the trail associated with early pioneers and settlers. About 1.5 miles east of the Ruins site is the Butler Wash Petroglyph Panel.

The Trail Head is just to the west of Comb Ridge along Utah Route 163. There is an interpretive sign at the turnoff that introduces the difficulties that Mormon pioneers had in getting past the massive sandstone obstacle that Comb Ridge presented. A few minutes further down the trail is the Navajo Springs site.

The sign here describes the situation on December 27, 1879 when the starving Mormon scouts improved an Ancestral Pueblo Trail and made it over the Ridge. On the east side of Comb Ridge there is a marker for Hobbs Wash that describes the area where the scouts including George Hobbs spent that night before finally arriving in the area that is now Bluff.

The trail south is mostly flat, crossing a wash several times. The vegetation is mostly the invasive Tamarisk, though this tree offers a little shade that the native Rabbit Brush does not. About 3 miles south the trail starts to climb San Juan Hill; the area that the pioneers decided was the most feasible place to try to cross the rugged ridge. The interpretive sign describes how hard it was here on the animals and pioneers to labor up the steep rocky slope.

Further on is the area called the Rincone. In 1885 a trading post was established here at a point that was popular for crossing the San Juan River. Observing the terrain on the other side I wondered where anyone came from and where they went when they crossed at this point. It’s hard to see any travel routes on the other side. The bottoms area here is green with a lot of Cottonwood and Russian Olive Trees.

Most of the visitors to the River House Ruin arrive as part of rafting trips on the San Juan River. The trip from Bluff to Mexican Hat is popular. The ruins site is in the set of sandstone cliffs that are just above the river bottoms. There is a higher set of sandstone cliffs with a road below that could cause a hiker some confusion but these cliffs are well back from the river.

The River House appears to have about a dozen rooms and a circular kiva. It also has pictographs on the alcove walls including a large two toned snake. The left side of the alcove has several white hand prints and other figures.

There is a ledge trail from the west that leads to the ruins also. I followed the ledge trail by accident. About 100 yards west of the River House Ruin there is a small granary ruin site along the ledge trail. A hiker could arrive at the ruins and find no one here, or find a group of 21 rafters like I did.

The Butler Wash Petroglyph Panel is 1.5 miles further east from the River House. The 4WD road continues until the last 150 yards. There are several small petroglyph panels along the way giving a preview of the large and spectacular panel ahead. This area along the San Juan River is very rich in petroglyphs, the Sand Island site closer to Bluff being an easy site to visit.

The left side of the large panel seems to have the clearest images, featuring several large broad shouldered figures. The panel extends for about 100 yards to the right but the desert varnish appears to be recovering many of the figures making them harder to see.

I found at least one Kokopelli here that appeared to use part of the natural rock for the headdress.

There is a shady area below the elevated panel with good views up and down the river. There is at least one small ruins site visible with binoculars on the south side of the river in this area. The Butler Wash Panel is a popular stop for the rafting groups.

I was 3:30 hours into my hike when I turned back to retrace my steps. It took me 2:30 hours to go the 5.5 miles back to my starting point and a total of 6:00 hours for the 11 mile trip. I carried 4 liters of water and drank it all. This early June day was a little cooler than average with the temperature about 65 F at 9:00 AM and about 85 F at 3:00 PM. There was some breeze in the afternoon that helped with cooling.

Todie Canyon to Split Level Ruin

2009-04-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

Todie Canyon is one of the five or six entry points into the 51.7 mile Grand Gulch Primitive Area trail in the Cedar Mesa area of southeast Utah.

The Todie Canyon Trail Head is about 3.5 miles south of the Kane Gulch Ranger Station along Utah Highway 261, and then another mile down a dirt road. The BLM charges a $2 fee for day hiking in the Grand Gulch system.
The trail starts out as an easy walk along the canyon rim for about 0.5 miles and then descends very steeply to the canyon bottom. The route is a rocky jumble for about a mile and the going is slow, before smoothing out as it approaches the junction with the Kane Gulch Trail.
The junction is about 7.5 miles along the Kane Gulch trail, so Todie Canyon is a shortcut that allows a day hiker to view this more distant part of the Grand Gulch. There are several pools of water and huge boulders that require the trail to detour away from the canyon bottom for short distances. Take careful note what the route in and out of the canyon looks like as it can be confusing, though it is well marked.

The Todie Canyon has more small Ancestral Pueblo Ruins to view in the upper section than nearby Kane Gulch, though most of them are high on the canyon walls and inaccessible. There are at least five sites, one of the sites seems to be a series of granaries side by side.

There is a canyon floor level site just past the junction with the Kane Gulch Trail about 2.5 miles down the trail. This site doesn’t seem to have a name but has a number of small structures and a red geometric pictograph high on the sandstone wall.

The site isn’t completely obvious from the trail. The Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper trees obscure the view from the main trail, and it would be easy to walk past it. There are spur trails off of the main trail that lead to this site and the Split Level site.

About 3.8 miles down the route the highlight Split Level Ruins appears. About 100 yards before this south facing alcove site there is a small petroglyph panel. This petroglyph panel has two figures that look like long snouted mountain sheep standing up on their hind legs. They resemble the popular Kokopelli figures but without any sign of a flute.

The Split Level Ruin is also not immediately visible from the trail. The alcove is visible but the view is blocked by trees and you’re not sure if anything is there until you explore closer.

Split Level Ruin is one of the major sites in this area. It seems to feature a tower pressed against the sandstone wall, overlooking the low structures in front. It took me 2:30 hours to arrive at Split Level Ruin. I had some trouble on the way back as I tried climbing out at the wrong point. I wasted about an hour and used about 6:00 hours for this 7.6 mile hike. There were very few hikers in this part of Grand Gulch on a 65 F, day in late April.

Kane Gulch Trail

2009-04-22T09:51:00.000-07:00

The Kane Gulch Trail is a hiking and horse trail and is one of the five or six trail heads for the popular 51.7 mile Grand Gulch Primitive Area Trail in the Cedar Mesa area in southeast Utah. The trail head is at the Kane Gulch Ranger Station a few miles south of the junction of Utah routes 95 and 261. Natural Bridges National Monument is nearby to this area. This is one of the canyons where the BLM charges a small fee for use of the trail.The trail descends along the canyon floor with the sandstone walls gradually becoming deeper and massive. There are springs and water pools and some riparian habitat along the canyon floor and Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper and other desert vegetation along the canyon sides. A few of the narrow shady areas have some tall Douglas Firs.

In the first four miles I only saw one granary ruins high on the canyon side. Compared with nearby Arch Canyon near Comb Ridge, the canyon sides here are steeper and offer fewer sites for small ruins, at least in this upper section. The canyon floor seemed to be narrower and rockier.

At the 4.0 mile mark there is a good ruins site at the junction of Kane Gulch and Grand Gulch, known as the Junction Ruins. From the distance the upper level structures are visible. The wide lower alcove shelters several small structures.

It is a short climb up to view the low structures. The midden trash area in front of the site is more obvious than at most sites and has a chain around it to deter visitors from walking over it. The midden area has many pottery shards to view and a surprising amount of small corn cobs. I looked closely for rock art along the walls but didn’t find any here. The terrain at this deep canyon junction is wide and flat and very scenic and shady, a pleasant place to linger.

The Turkey Pen Ruins site is only 0.7 miles past the Junction Ruins. This is also a multi level site in a large elevated alcove. There is a squarish kiva like structure right at the entrance to the site, with several small structures pressed against the sandstone walls. During my visit the far half of the site was closed.

The Turkey Pen Ruins site is rich in pictographs, featuring many hand prints, with some big horn sheep and some humanoid figures. At least three colors are used here, white and red for the hand prints and brown for one of the broad shouldered humanoid figures. One of the big horn sheep was two toned in brown and white.

From the elevated area of Turkey Pen Ruins, it looked like there was a small arch visible across on the other side of the canyon, but it may have just been the light. The map I had mentions Stimper Arch 0.3 miles further around a meander on the canyon. After viewing Stimper Arch, I turned around here, at the 5.0 mile mark and returned to the trail head.

My total hike was 5:20 hours for the 10 miles I hiked. The going is uphill on the way back and I noticed the sandy sections more. The trail is a little harder to follow going uphill. Trail segments that aren’t part of the main trail can lead you astray. I carried three liters of water on a 70 degree F. mid April day and had a few swallows left at the end.

Bluff Great House

2009-04-22T04:50:00.000-07:00

The Bluff Great House Site in southeast Utah, is thought to be at the edge of the regional culture that was centered on Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, 125 miles to the southeast.

The Bluff site is on a hill overlooking the San Juan River Valley. From the intersection of Road 3 East and Mulberry in the town of Bluff, follow the paved road that starts west and curves back north to the parking area next to an information kiosk.

There isn’t much of a hike here. The ruins site is an easy stroll across the road. The terrain here is dry and grassy with massive sandstone cliffs to the north. The San Juan River rises in the mountains to the east and flows west toward Lake Powell and the Colorado River above Glen Canyon Dam. Bluff is a launch point for rafting trips into the wild canyon areas to the west.

There is a large rubble mound that is the remains of the Great House. This structure is thought to have been constructed by 1100 AD and abandoned by 1300 AD. The interpretive information in the kiosk indicates that the Great House was rectangular with three circular kivas and about 20 rooms, with a section that was two stories tall. The University of Colorado is working on the site and there is a wooden structure that covers a trench where some of the wall remains can be viewed.

To the south of the Great House are the mostly unexcavated remains of a 45 foot diameter Great Kiva that rests six feet below the surface. All that can be seen for now is a shallow depression.

Related sites in the area are the large petroglyph panel at Sand Island, a few miles to the west and the large site at the Edge of the Cedars Museum in Blanding about 25 miles to the north. There are also many small sites and hikes in the Comb Ridge area about five miles to the west.

Top of Comb Ridge Trail-Procession Panel

2009-03-14T04:42:00.000-07:00

Comb Ridge is a massive wedge of uplifted sandstone that runs north and south for 80 miles in southeast Utah. The east side of Comb Ridge along Butler Wash Road has many eroded canyons that offer interesting hiking.

One of the trails allows a moderate route to the top of Comb Ridge and also has the Procession petroglyph panel.Butler Wash Road starts about 5.0 miles west of Bluff along Highway 163, near the San Juan River. The trail that begins about 6.6 miles north of the south gate of Butler Wash Road offers a route to get to one of the high points of Comb Ridge offering wide views of the remote Cedar Mesa area, an area rich with small Ancestral Pueblo ruins sites.

This trail starts on a short side road from the Butler Wash Road and doesn't have a BLM sign in box or any trail head information.

The trail is mostly over sandstone without a marked route. Head for the reddish ridge and stay to the south of the deep canyon, working along the south rim. There are visible trail segments on the areas that aren't bare rock.

The trail leads to a view point between two rugged peaks of Comb Ridge. To the right are some flat vertical south facing cliffs. The environment here is scattered Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper trees with Mormon Tea, Prickly Pear Cactus, and maybe Blackbrush. This area is very hot in the summer with spring and fall being the best times to visit.

To the upper west end of the cliffs is the Procession petroglyph panel. The trail doesn't lead directly to the petroglyph panel so you'll have to steer up to the right.

There doesn't seem to be any ruins in the vicinity of this panel, though ruins are present in the adjacent canyons. This panel features three long lines of small figures marching toward a circle along with several animal figures.

I notice that among the marchers are a few larger figures, with birds on their heads and carrying long staffs.

The nearby Sand Island petroglyph site has several flute player figures, and ducks on the heads of figures are also found there and in several other sites. The line of marchers extends around the natural corner of the rock and they keep coming. Another petroglyph site that appears to show a procession is along the Hidden Valley Trail near Moab, Utah.

Some of the marchers seem to be in particularly good spirits, waving to the viewers from across the gap of deep time. I spent about 2:30 hours on this hike and walked about four miles, including the walk past the petroglyphs to the top of Comb Ridge. At the top, there is a ruins site in view in one of the canyons to the north.

Hobbs Wash Exploring

2009-03-13T05:11:00.000-07:00

Hobbs Wash is a short tributary to Lower Butler Wash, about five miles west of Bluff in southeast Utah. There are no official trails into the wash but the area has some Ancestral Pueblo ruins sites and petroglyphs to hike towards and the distance is short.

I started my hike at the Historical Marker that is on the west side of Butler Wash and still east of Comb Ridge on the north side of the highway. Crossing to the south side of the highway, it is a short walk down into Hobbs Wash, but quickly the wash reaches a pour over point.

I explored further south along the rim looking for an easy route down, but didn't see anything reasonable, though I think others have found an easy way.

To the right of the pour point, there is a rocky slope that isn't easy, but is feasible to descend to the canyon floor. It is a little tangled going down the small wash but once you reach the junction with Butler Wash, there are some hiker made trails up and down Butler Wash.

At the junction, I turned left, or north and hiked back towards the highway. There are some alcoves in small Hobbs Wash that look like feasible sites for ruins but I didn't see anything still standing. I did notice one small petroglyph on the north wall. Looking to the south, I think there must be another ruins site nearby, but I didn't go that way to see it.

A few hundred yards to the north I found a small site. This site is very close to the highway and vehicles can be seen racing by. The sandstone layer here sits on top of a thick layer of soil that has eroded into steep dirt cliffs with sluggish water flow winding in between.

The bottoms area is thick with vegetation and there is a meandering stream. Even though the distance is short back to the highway it didn't look very hikeable.

This site has two small structures and a reddish pictograph on the back wall. The historical marker on the highway commemorates four scouts that sought shelter in this area on December 27, 1879. The scouts were exploring a route for Mormon Hole in the Rock pioneers.

I retraced my steps without searching further south along the Butler Wash, climbing up the rocky slope. I spent about 2:00 hours on this hike, much of it looking around on the rim for the route down.

I don't think I visited the better known Hobbs Wash Ruin. This is an area where it might be good strategy to spot the sites from the east side of Butler Wash first.

Four Alcove Trail on Comb Ridge

2009-02-28T04:06:00.000-08:00

The Four Alcove Trail is along one of the many creeks that flow east off of Comb Ridge into Lower Butler Wash in southeast Utah, about five miles west of Bluff. This isn't one of the better known trails in this unpublicized area, but a small ruins in a high alcove is visible with binoculars from the Butler Wash Road at about 5.5 miles north of the south gate.

This trail starts at short side road that has a loop and a campsite at the end, right on the edge of Butler Wash. It heads up a narrow gash in the Comb Ridge sandstone to an area that has two alcoves on the north and two on the south. There are cow trails leading across the wash and sage brush area to the creek. In the creek there are trail segments that cows and a few hikers use. There isn't a sign in box or other information for this route.

The small ruin that is visible is high in an alcove and comes in and out of view. In the area below the ruins there is another south facing alcove and also two north facing alcoves directly across. The high desert plants like Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper penetrate this creek area. There was some moisture in the upper end of the creek from recent rain.

To get a better view of the south facing ruins I climbed into the very large north facing alcove. Although this alcove is very large there were no standing structures, though there were several holes that looked like amateur excavations. I didn't see any easy way to get closer to the high level site.

The lower south facing alcove has a deep cave but quite a bit of sandstone has crashed into the area in front of the site. There is a small dry wall structure with what looks like an attempt at petroglyphs. The second and smaller north facing alcove also has a small dry wall structure.

I liked the views from this narrow gash of a canyon back down towards Butler Wash. Before the four alcove area there is a side trail leading to the left to a side branch of the creek that also has an alcove with a small dry wall structure and more good views.

I used about 1:45 hours here and this felt like about a 3 mile hike.

Wolfman Petroglyph Trail in Comb Ridge

2009-02-27T04:00:00.000-08:00

The Wolfman Petroglyph Trail is a 1.5 mile round trip to an unusual panel in the Lower Butler Wash area on the east side of the massive Navajo Sandstone Comb Ridge in southeast Utah, about five miles west of Bluff. The trail head is about 1.0 miles north along Butler Wash Road.

The first part of the trail is a 4WD road that ends on slick rock at the edge of the wash. The Wolfman Petroglyph trail is one of the better known trails in an otherwise unpublicized area that has many small archaeology sites in a very rugged and scenic setting. There is a BLM sign in box and information kiosk at the trail head, but the information was not specific for this trail.

From the trail head, the La Sal Mountains are visible to the north and there are steep sandstone cliffs along the east side of the Butler Wash valley. There are a few rock cairns where the 4WD road ends leading to the south to a narrow notch that leads to a ramp down into the wash bottom.

From the rim there is a small ruins site slightly to the north that is probably most easily viewed from this elevated position.

At the bottom of the rocky ramp an alcove comes into view and the panel is just past the alcove. These figures are to the far right seem to be much smoother and carefully done than others in the region.

The bird figure next to the humanoid looks like an Avocet, or some other long billed shore bird and further to the left looks like a Great Blue Heron. These are wetlands birds that might be common in the bottoms of the nearby San Juan River. There are two carefully done canine prints and other figures appear to be flowers or parts of plants. One figure looks like Cattail, a common wetlands plant.

Closer to the alcove is another group of figures that includes what looks like an owl head, a fish skeleton, a catfish, and a jelly fish. The circular figure looks like an overhead view of a mushroom. It seems to have also drawn attention as a target. Many of the petroglyph panels in the region feature wildlife, but mountain sheep seem to be the most common.

The wash bottom here is narrow and seems unusual in that the sandstone rests on a layer of deep soil that erodes easily. From the distance, the small ruins here looks like it was constructed from mud bricks rather than sandstone bricks. I spent about 1:00 hour on this 1.5 mile hike.

Natural Bridges National Monument Short Trails

2009-02-14T04:54:00.000-08:00

Natural Bridges National Monument is in the remote Cedar Mesa canyon country of southeast Utah and has three examples of giant natural rock spans. Traveling around the Bridge View Drive, there are trails leading down to each of the three Bridges.

Bridges are different from arches in that bridges are partially formed by the moving water of a stream, where arches are formed by frost action on seeping water. Bridges are also often hidden deep in canyons, whereas arches are eroded fins and are often perched up high and easy to see. These bridges are in the Cedar Mesa sandstone layer that is deeper than the layer where the stone arches of Arches Park occur.

The first trail head along the nine mile loop road is Sipapu Bridge Trail. The trail down there is only 0.6 miles but has a 500 ft. elevation change. There are wooden ladders, stairs, and hand rails to help you traverse the steep slippery sandstone. Sipapu Bridge is 220 feet high, 31 feet wide, and has a span of 268 feet with a thickness of 53 feet. Sipapu is an Ancestral Pueblo term referring to the place of emergence. The circular kivas found at many ruins sites have a symbolic Sipapu in the floor.

At the bottom it is lush and green and a different world from the desert conditions on the rim. This area of southeast Utah is rich in Ancestral Pueblo Ruins and these canyons have some, though you need to explore to find them. The Horse Collar Ruin that is visible from the rim is about one mile down canyon from Sipapu on the north side of the canyon.

The Kachina Bridge Trail here was the longest of the three bridge trails at 0.75 miles down, but the elevation change not so bad at 350 ft. On the road to the Kachina Trail Head is an overlook for Horse Collar Ruin. The Kachina Bridge is 210 feet high, 44 feet wide, with a span of 204 feet and is the thickest here at 93 feet.

A lot of work had been done on the trail, cutting and arranging stones to make convenient steps down an otherwise steep route. There are some faint petroglyphs high on the walls of the Kachina Bridge. (Kachina Bridge is named for some of the petroglyph figures on the walls near the base of the bridge. Some of the figures are also of interest to those who believe that the Ancestral Pueblos lived at the same time as the dinosaurs.)

These bridges are so massive that it is hard to take pictures of them up close with your typical cameras. The dark streaks on the sandstone are desert varnish, a mostly manganese and iron deposit left from evaporated water. Again, it was much greener and moister at the bottom of the canyon and the place was alive with birds calling.

The Owachoma Bridge Trail is the shortest and easiest of the three bridge trails. This bridge is 106 feet high, 27 feet wide with a span of 180 feet and a thickness of only 9 feet. Owachoma translates as "round mound."

Owachoma Bridge is an example of an older bridge, perhaps near collapse. It is so old that the stream that formed it doesn't flow under it any more. It is easy to get to, only 0.2 mile and only a 90 foot descent. This one is on the cover of the park brochure, the highlight of natural bridges. It is possible to hike between each of these bridges through the canyons with connecting loop trail on the mesa top. A tour of all three bridges in one hike is 8.6 miles.

Arch Canyon Trail

2008-11-02T04:35:00.000-08:00

The Arch Canyon Trail is a 16 mile round trip to two large arches in the Cedar Mesa area of southeast Utah, west of Blanding and just west of Comb Ridge. Along the way there are also several mostly small Ancestral Pueblo Ruins sites.

The trail head is 2.5 miles north of Utah Route 95 along a BLM gravel road. The road is a north turn just after passing through the engineered notch in the massive sandstone of Comb Ridge. The trail is mostly an ATV trail so the walking is fairly easy. This trail head is also the starting point for a hike to Hotel Rock. Look for the Walnut Knob petroglyph site in the trail head area also.

There are many creek crossings but in fall there is not much water to step through. The trail is sandy and meandering much of the way.

Within the first ten minutes of hiking there is the fairly large Arch Canyon Ruins site that has several wall sections still standing and many collapsed rubble pile structures, and several examples of petroglyphs on the sandstone canyon walls.

After that site, there are small and inconspicuous sites higher in the canyon walls. I saw four that I'm sure were sites. I saw other possible sites but they were so far up the canyon walls that it was difficult to tell even with binoculars. On this hike I was focused on reaching the two large arches and didn't stop at the ruins small sites. On a later hike to the Hotel Rock side canyon I looked at the ruins more closely.

Further up the canyon there are more rock fins and monument formations. The canyon forest changes gradually from Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper to Ponderosa Pines with occasional Douglas Firs in shady canyon corners.

I looked at this alcove carefully to see if it was an arch or a ruins site but it didn't appear to be either. Binoculars are handy on this hike for scanning the canyon walls.

It took me about 4:00 hours to get to Cathedral Arch, with Angel Arch another few minutes further. The land status changes from BLM to Forest Service just as Cathedral Arch comes into view, and the trail changes from jeep trail to footpath.

The trip back took 3:00 hours for a total hike of 7:10 hours for the 16 mile round trip. I carried four liters of water and finished the last drops when I returned to the trail head on a perfect late October day of blue sky and about 65 F. This is a long hike but there is a lot to see.

Arch Canyon Ruins Trail

2008-11-01T05:02:00.000-07:00

The Arch Canyon Trail in the Cedar Mesa area, west of Blanding in southeast Utah features two large arches and several small Ancestral Pueblo Ruins sites.

The access is 2.5 miles north on the BLM road that is just west of Comb Ridge along Utah Scenic Byway 95. The Arch Canyon Ruins are within the first ten minutes of hiking. From the parking area, also look for Walnut Knob and a rubble pile ruins that overlooks the trail.

The Arch Canyon Ruins appears to be a combination alcove site and mesa top site. There are some wall sections abutting against a sandstone cliff and collapsed rubble piles in front.

It looks like there are three or four structures still partly standing and these draw the most interest. The site is on the north side of the canyon and gets full sun most of the day. It is somewhat elevated above the creek that would have provided a year round water supply.

The third structure seems to have the most details left, showing some entryways and examples of the stonework still in place.

The numerous rubble piles make it appear that this was a sizeable village but there isn't much in the rubble to see for the untrained eye. I didn't find any interpretive information on this site, such as number of rooms or kivas.
Between the structures on the sandstone wall there are several petroglyphs. This is a trail that seems to have it all, ruins, petroglyphs, arches, massive cliffs, carved monuments, and year round water.Besides the geometric designs there are also a few petroglyphs of animal and humanoid figures. Beyond the ruins site the trail extends as an ATV trail for about eight miles before reaching Cathedral and Angel Arches. Along the way there are opportunites to scan the high cliffs for small Ancestral Pueblo sites.

Cathedral Arch and Angel Arch in Arch Canyon

2008-10-31T05:13:00.000-07:00

Arch Canyon in the Cedar Mesa area of southeast Utah is named for two large arches that are about eight miles up the canyon at the end of an ATV Trail. The trail head is up a dirt road, 2.5 miles north of Utah Route 95, just west of the rugged Comb Ridge.

At the end of the ATV trail the land status changes from the BLM to the Forest Service and the trail becomes a footpath. Cathedral Arch is visible at the trail head.

The forest at the upper end of Arch Canyon is dominated by Ponderosa Pines rather than the Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper forest of the lower canyon and patches of evergreen manzanita are common. The trail continues to cross and recross the creek that runs through Arch Canyon. In late October 2008, there was only a small amount of flowing water with pools forming in a few places.

There didn't appear to be an angle to get blue sky through the Cathedral Arch from the trail. It was a long hike to get up this far and a long way back, so I didn't use up my energy to get up underneath for the blue sky angle.
A few minutes more of hiking, Angel Arch comes into view. Besides the spectacular scenery and large arches, Arch Canyon has the cultural overlay of Ancestral Pueblo Ruins. There are many small sites in the canyon but they are hard to see much less get close to.

At Angel Arch, it was possible to get an angle to see blue sky, but it involves maneuvering through some brush and finding a gap in the tall pines.

It looks like one could climb up higher and get under Angel Arch but it would take more energy than I had. It took me about 4:00 hours of hiking to get to this point and I turned around here.

Mule Canyon South Fork Trail

2008-10-18T06:27:00.000-07:00

The Mule Canyon South Fork Trail visits several small Ancestral Pueblo ruins in a fairly small canyon in the Cedar Mesa area in southeast Utah. The trailhead is a short distance along a gravel road on the north side of Scenic Byway 95 just east of the roadside Mule Canyon Ruins site.This is one of several trails in this BLM managed area that has a $2 per person day hiking permit fee. The trail head for the parallel Mule Canyon North Fork trail is another 0.5 miles along the same gravel road.

The trail follows a sandy and rocky creek bed, crossing frequently. In fall there is no flowing water, only a few pools. Deeper into the canyon, there are more cool weather Ponderosa Pines, Engelmann Spruce and Douglas Firs along with the riparian Cottonwoods and willows.
The first ruin site arrives after about one mile and 30 minutes of hiking. The small site is well known as the "house on fire" ruin due to the way light plays on the ripples of sandstone in the alcove ceiling. This effect seems to show up better in photos than it did actually looking at it.
Another mile or so past the "house on fire" there is another small storage looking site. I only went up far enough to get a picture. The canyon has more large sandstone cliffs through the middle part of the trail.

The small ruins sites are spaced fairly evenly. The third site that I saw is perched high on a sandstone cliff, with the trail crossing bare rock at this point.
The last two of the five sites that I saw were also small and hard to see much. They are in locations where it would be difficult to get close to them. I walked about 4.2 miles to a point where the trail seemed to fizzle out.
The last part of the trail was very green and had quite a few large evergreen trees mixed with the riparian creek side trees. I also saw quite a bit of manzanita, an evergreen shrub member of the Heath family that I haven't seen very often in this region.

I used about 2:15 to get to the end of the trail, walking slowly while scanning for the ruins sites. My total hike was 4:00 hours.

Upper Butler Wash Trail and Ballroom Cave

2008-10-05T06:10:00.000-07:00

The Upper Butler Wash Trail is an unpublicized 1.25 mile route that visits three Ancestral Pueblo sites along a sandy creek bed. The trail begins at the well marked Butler Wash Ruins Trail that is along Scenic Byway Utah Route 95 west of Blanding in southeast Utah.

Just inside the fence at the trail head for the Butler Wash Ruins Trail, an unnoticed path takes off to the right and follows near the fence for 0.25 miles. There is a BLM sign in box and an alternate place to park near the highway sign for the better known trail.

After about 40 minutes along a somewhat overgrown path, criss crossing the creek and stepping over a lot of small fallen trees, the first of three ruins sites appears in an alcove to the left.

I climbed up the sandy hill to the right, though left might have been a better choice. The first site is known as Ballroom Cave. There is some interpretive information in an ammo box on the right side of the site. Besides the main alcove there are side caves on each side.

On the alcove walls to the right are several small petroglyphs. I suppose the one to the left is a deer with a big rack, somewhat stylized.

Room blocks to the right have some roof beams still in place. Stepping carefully past these, there is a cave room that appears empty but I didn't go in there very far.

Above the room blocks is a good multicolored pictograph. There are more handprint pictographs along the right side wall.

On the left side there are some wall sections and another deeper cave room that looked mostly empty but I didn't go down there. The view from the site is elevated and the creek bottom below is thick with cottonwoods and brushy plants. This site seemed to have a very thick sand layer below the sandstone layer. Along the left side of the site there may be a seep spring providing water.

Within the next 500 yards there are two more sites. The second site is hard to climb up into, and I just looked from below. The third site is mostly a small storage area in a small elevated alcove with a wall fragment down below. There is not much to see except to marvel at the placement of the sites and the environment they reside in. I spent about 2:00 hours on this trail.

There are two more ruins sites along the Upper Bulter Wash Trail that aren't obvious from the trail. On the return hike look for side trails that climb abruptly, on the same side as the Ballroom site. One of the side trails leads to the interesting Target Ruins site.

Kigalia Canyon Trail

2008-10-04T05:38:00.000-07:00

The Kigalia Canyon Trail is a 2.5 mile route in the Manti La Sal National Forest along the Elk Ridge Road near Natural Bridges National Monument in southeast Utah. The trail head is at the Kilgalia Guard Station, marked as 026, about 10 miles along the forest road from the junction with the paved road that leads to Natural Bridges.This trail is higher in elevation than the high desert Pinon PIne and Utah Juniper areas of most of the Cedar Mesa area and starts in a Ponderosa Pine and Aspen forest
There is a ruin along the early part of the trail, but not the type we are usually looking for in this area of numerous Ancestral Pueblo dwellings. There was also the remains of an old wagon near the cabin site.
The trail descends steadily down a small drainage. As the trail gets deeper there are more cool weather deep forest trees like Douglas Firs and Engelmann Spruce. The forest is very dense down below and there weren't any views on the part that I walked.
The day I hiked here there were quite a few deer along the trail and I also saw a group of turkeys. I only sampled the trail for 30 minutes down and back up for a total 1:00 hour hike.

Bears Ears and Arch Canyon

2008-10-03T06:23:00.000-07:00

The Bears Ears is a pair of buttes 6 miles along the Elk Ridge access road to the Manti La Sal National Forest near Natural Bridges National Monument in southeast Utah.

The turn off is about 4 miles before the entrance to Natural Bridges and the road climbs steeply the first couple of miles. About 3 miles past the Bears Ears on the Elk Ridge road is the Arch Canyon Overlook looking to the southeast. The canyon mouth starts near the point where Scenic Route Utah 95 passes through an engineered notch is the massive Comb Ridge sandstone formation.

The canyon runs for about 10 miles from northwest to southeast. There is an Arch Canyon Trail that penetrates the canyon to Cathedral Arch and Angel Arch, but these two features are about 7 miles up the trail.

The Bears Ears aren't spectacular in themselves, but they are visible from long distances in the Four Corners area and have served as a regional navigation point. The Bears Ears are the remnants of Wingate Sandstone. This layer sits on top of the shales of the Chinle Layer and just below the thick Navajo and Entrada Sandstones that are visible Arches and Canyonlands National Park area.

The gravel forest road splits the Bears Ears, passing between them. It looks like there are unofficial trails going up that climbers probably use.

Westwater Ruin & Edge of the Cedars

2008-07-21T04:44:00.000-07:00

The Westwater Ruin is an Ancestral Pueblo canyon rock alcove site just south of Blanding in southeast Utah. It is located about 2 miles west along road 1200 South, which isn't marked.

The Westwater Ruin is an overlook site. I didn't see an easy trail across the canyon, though it looked like the agile could probably get over there.

Westwater Ruins is thought to have at least 13 ground level rooms and 5 kivas. There were also probably some upper level rooms. The site may have been occupied as early as 750 AD and abandoned by 1300.
This canyon has other ruins nearby, including the pueblo at the Edge of the Cedars Museum.

Down the canyon is to the south and the canyon appears to get deeper. There is some riparian habitat at the bottom of the canyon indicating permanent water. Up the canyon to the north the Blue Mountains are visible. This site has a good road going out to it, but there is no interpretive information and it doesn't appear to be protected except by its difficult location.

Edge of the Cedars is a Utah State Park in central Blanding. There is a partially excavated Ancestral Pueblo site there with a small museum. This is a site that appears to have had three lives. The first occupation lasted from 825 to 950 and the second from 1050 to 1125. In the early 1200s there was some remodeling with the site thought to be vacant during the intervals in between.

Then as now there were advantages to this location including the fine views of the nearby Abajo Mountains. The Edge refers to the biological boundary between the sagebrush fields and the Pinon Pine and Juniper forests. The trail here is short and visitors have to pass though the museum to get to the ruins site.

There is a reconstructed kiva than can be entered. The excavated sections of the site show part of the Great House. About 17 rooms and two kivas are visible. There is an unexcavated Great Kiva on the south side, appearing as a circular depression.

The abutment joints of walls show that the site was remodeled over a period of time. The stones used in building the site are a mix of flat tabular sandstone that had to be carried a long distance and more local chunky rocks. In the chunky layers, small chinking stones were used.

The Museum has a large collection of ancient pottery. At many of the ancient sites looting by collectors occurred before the sites were protected, so it's rare to see a lot of preserved ones on display.

Edge of the Cedars is a good place to find red ware pots, found mostly in southeast Utah and northeast Arizona. It is common to find pottery shards in the region and it is odd to think that the shards have been laying there for 700 years.

Westwater Canyon Trail

2008-07-20T05:31:00.000-07:00

The Westwater Canyon Trail is located on the south side of Blanding, Utah at road 500 South only about one block west of the main road Highway 191. This isn't the same site as the Westwater Ruin, which is about two miles to the southwest, further down the same canyon.There are trails along the rim of this desert canyon going to the north and south. The south trail has some displays of the historical heritage of the area. There is good desert hiking to the north much of it on an ATV trail.
In the Heritage Trail section to the south there is an observation tower and an amphitheater. From the tower there are good views of the canyon area and the Blue Mountains to the north. This is a desert canyon with Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper trees and sage brush dominating.

The cultures represented include the Navajo Indians whose large Reservation is not far to the south. Two reconstructions of the traditional Hogan dwellings of the Navajo are presented along with an oven and a shade house structure.
The Anglo reconstruction shows and cabin and a variety of old farm implements. There were several historic old wagons and wheels on display also. These different sites are connected by a network of trails rather than a loop.
The Spanish Village has a small building and a corral and out building. The hiking trail to the north descends into the canyon and crosses and seems to go a long ways on the west rim. There are some minor Ancestral Pueblo sites just under the canyon rims.

I hiked around this area for about 1:20 on a hot mid summer day.

Indian Creek Trail-Blue Mountains

2008-07-18T05:28:00.001-07:00

The Indian Creek Trail is on north side of the Blue or Abajo Mountains west of Monticello in southeast Utah. This is the same Indian Creek that flows past Newspaper Rock on the way to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park.

The trail head is marked 021 and is located about two miles past Foy Lake down a narrow steep dirt road. The road to the trail head would make a good hike in itself with good views down the deep Indian Creek Canyon.

The first part of the trail descends steeply down toward the Indian Creek and then the trail descends gently, passing through mostly lush riparian habitat. The Indian Creek was still flowing well in midsummer. The Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper at the trail head changed quickly to narrow-leaf cottonwoods and willows, with some box elder and birch.

In some places there were stands of Ponderosa Pines and a few Douglas Firs. In the moist areas Rocky Mountain Red Cedar replaced the Utah Juniper. Some of the Ponderosas were the old yellow barks that aren't seen very often. The sandstone cliffs that were visible from the trail are only the inner canyon. Views from higher up show this to be a very deep canyon.

This appeared to be a little used trail. There were no footprints from other hikers here in midsummer. The only other users appeared to be cattle. I walked down the trail for 1:30 and came back up in about the same for a total hike of 3:00 hours.

Robertson Pasture Trail-Blue Mountains

2008-07-11T08:31:00.000-07:00

The Robertson Pasture Trail is in the Blue or Abajo Mountains west of Monticello in southeast Utah. This small mountain range is one of several in the region that was formed as an igneous intrusion, molten rock pushing up and folding the overlying rock but not forming a volcano.

I started my hike at Foy Lake which is about 11 miles straight west of Monticello. There are several other trail heads in the vicinity of this small lake.

The trail starts in rich Pinon Pine and Juniper forest with a lot of Gambel Oak mixed in. The route circles counter clock wise around North Peak at 10, 823 feet, and climbs fairly steeply.
Wildflowers are good along this trail. The lower part of the trail has good views to the north toward the Canyonlands National Park area. An area of petrified sand dunes is visible.
As the trail swings around the south side of North Peak the views to the west open up. The area to the west is the Dark Canyon Wilderness and Primitive Areas.

Arriving at the open meadow pasture areas there are views of Abajo Peak, at 11,014 feet the tallest point in this range. The Robertson Pasture Trail continues on and connects with other trails. I stopped after 2:15 hours at the point that seemed to be the crest of the Pasture area and returned to Foy Lake, going down in 1:15, for a total hike of 3:30.

Three Kiva Pueblo in Montezuma Canyon

2008-07-10T10:01:00.000-07:00

Three Kiva Pueblo is a remote Ancestral Pueblo site along the rugged Montezuma Creek Road between Monticello and Blanding in southeast Utah.
The challenge of this site is finding it. Montezuma Creek Road, C-146, is five miles south of the Visitor Info Center in Monticello, Utah off of Route 191, but is not marked. The road is gravel to start out and descends steeply into Montezuma Canyon. The canyon floor at the north end is mostly privately owned and there are some irrigated hay operations and a few private homes. It is 27 miles along this road to Three Kiva while the road gradually becomes narrower, loses the gravel and is rougher.

The site is small and isolated. There are many other Ancestral Pueblo sites in Montezuma Canyon but they are on private land and not accessible. Some of these sites are visible from the road, particularly in the three miles north of the Three Kiva site. This site is thought to have 14 rooms, three kivas, and a few other features including a possible turkey run.

The highlight of this site is that one of the kivas has been reconstructed and visitors can climb down the ladder through the roof and sit inside the subterranean ceremonial structure. This was welcome on a 95 F. degree day as it was cool and shady below. (In June 2011 I noticed that the ladder is missing.)

The low ceiling made the bench useless. I suppose there is some height missing here. All the features of the Kiva were otherwise in place. Another reconstructed Kiva in the region is the Great Kiva at Aztec Ruins in northwest New Mexico. Other reconstructed kivas that can be entered are at Edge of the Cedars in Blanding, Utah and Spruce Tree House at Mesa Verde National Park.

The other feature that I wonder about is that the roof entrance is also the chimney for letting smoke from the fire escape. Hold your breath when entering and make sure no one stokes the fire just as you descend over it.

The environmental setting here is mostly dry Sagebrush on the canyon floor with Pinon Pine and Juniper on the canyon sides. The creek supports a lush growth of Cottonwood Trees so it must be a good source of water. The canyon floor is wide enough for extensive farming.

Continuing south on the rugged road, it is seven miles until a better gravel road is reached, then nine miles to the paved roads at the Hatch Trading Post area. Keep an eye out for rock art on the west side cliffs a few miles south of Three Kiva. If traveling to Three Kiva Pueblo from the south, the right turn onto C-146 is easy to miss.

Butler Wash Ruins Overlook Trail

2008-03-12T10:37:00.000-07:00

The Butler Wash Ruins Overlook Trail is a short 0.5 mile route to a large Ancestral Pueblo Ruins site in southeast Utah west of Blanding along the scenic byway Utah Route 95.

This route on the way to Natural Bridges National Monument has some of very spectacular scenery. From the trail head the view west is to Comb Ridge, a 90 mile long sharp spined sandstone hogback that was a nearly impossible barrier to travel before the modern age. The east facing side is mostly the Navajo Sandstone layer.

The parking area here can also be used as a trail head for the Upper Butler Wash Trail that visits at least three ruins sites including the Ballroom Cave. Just inside the fence at the trail head an unnoticed and unmarked trail takes off to the right.
The main trail crosses through high desert of sparse Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper trees with a lot of bare exposed rock. This trail is a short introduction to canyon and desert hiking and the desert environment.
The trail ends at an overlook to the ruins, tucked under an alcove across a deep eroded canyon. At first glance it is one of those places where you wonder how did they get to that place.

Not visible from the overlook is a modest sized arch or natural bridge at the head of the canyon. Move to the left about 100 feet or walk across the slick rock to the right about 100 yards. The ruins here are thought to have been built and occupied about 750 years ago and abandoned by 1300.

There is a good trail guide with markers on this trail, commenting on the geological layers visible here and identifying a dozen or so of the local plants. Some of the shrubs noted are Cliffrose, Threeleaf Sumac, Mountain Mahogany and Utah Serviceberry.

It took me about 30 minutes to make the round trip to the overlook but there is a lot to explore here. Look for the old trail also. There is an opening in the fence near the turn in, for access to explore the canyon below the ruins.

Mule Canyon Roadside Ruins

2008-03-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

The Mule Canyons Ruins Trail is a road side stop along Utah Route 95 on the way to Natural Bridges National Monument from Blanding, Utah. There are also the Mule Canyon South Fork and North Fork Trails a short distance back to the east that are hikes rather than road side stops.

The paved trail is very short and features a well protected kiva. This circular kiva has the same features as the excellent ones visible at Mesa Verde. This appears to be one of the few mesa top pueblo sites in the Cedar Mesa area, at least that are easy to visit. There are many sites along trails in this area, but most seem to be associated with canyon rock alcoves.

There is also a tower with a tunnel connection to the kiva. We see similar tower and kiva connections at Mesa Verde. The Cedar Tree Tower and Kiva on Chapin Mesa and at Badger House on Wetherill Mesa there are similar connections.

The site at Mule Canyon has excellent views of the surrounding mountain ranges. The Blue Mountains near Monticello, Utah still snow covered in early March. Sleeping Ute Mountain is also easily visible to the east.

The pueblo structure has 12 rooms and there are supposedly crawl ways from the rooms to the kivas. The circular kivas are usually described as being for ceremonies, as present day Pueblo people use them that way. I am starting to see these as having environmental uses also as earth contact living areas for shelter in cold weather.

The kivas are equipped with fire pits and ventilation shafts and the underground location would provide moderated temperatures and insulation. The underground tunnels would have provided access to stored food and materials without having to go outside.

There is not much hiking to do here, but the scene is quiet and the views spectacular. This site was developed as a rest area as part of the highway project. This site represents the Ancestral Pueblo culture at its height, when it was penetrating across southern Utah. Hardly anyone lives in this area now, yet 750 years ago the area was thriving.

Moki Dugway and Muley Point

2008-03-12T10:13:00.000-07:00

Traveling south from Natural Bridges National Monument on Utah Route 261 the road drops steeply off of Cedar Mesa to the area along the San Juan River in southeast Utah.

The steep, narrow, twisty, gravel road that descends is called the Moki Dugway. It was constructed in 1958 by a mining company for transporting Uranium ore and drops 1100 feet in three miles. If you're lucky, you won't meet anyone coming the other way. Just before the descent off Cedar Mesa down the Moki Dugway, there is a dirt road that runs several miles west to a view point called Muley Point.
The view here at Muley Point is to the south, overlooking the Goosenecks of the San Juan River with views to the spires of Monument Valley, on the Arizona-Utah border. It is just a short walk from the parking area to the edge, over a sandstone cap with a few scattered Pinon and Juniper trees. I felt a little nervous peering over the edge, a strong wind blowing on me.

There were wide cracks and large boulders that had tumbled off the rim. I felt like it would be my luck for one to break loose right when I was there and send me hurtling to the bottom.
The San Juan River is meandering here, flowing to the west, into Lake Powell behind the Glen Canyon Dam, where it joins the water of the Colorado River.

Goosenecks of the San Juan River

2008-03-12T06:52:00.000-07:00

Along the rim of the Goosenecks of the San Juan River is a small State Park offering a spectacular view of the entrenched meanders, a thousand feet below the rim. The San Juan River flows out of the San Juan Mountains in southwest Colorado and flows through the desert areas of the Four Corners area flowing west to meet with the waters of the Colorado River in Lake Powell.
Here the San Juan River has cut itself into a twisty course through layers of sandstone and shales of the Honaker Trail Formation and the limestone layers of the Paradox Formation. These are deeper layers of rock than are usually visible in the region.
There were some rafters visible way down there as I gazed over the edge. There is a one day raft trip from Bluff, Utah to Mexican Hat, but if you go past there, into the Goosenecks it is five days before you can get out.
There is room in the park for some short hikes along the rim, gazing at the meanders from different angles. The terrain is treeless and probably has some desert wildflowers in season. There was a Navajo couple selling jewelry on the day I visited, a common sight in this region.

Valley of the Gods

2008-03-12T06:42:00.000-07:00

At the base of Cedar Mesa in southeast Utah, as you finish the scary descent of the Moki Dugway, there is a graded gravel and dirt road winding 17 miles through an area of carved sandstone monuments called the Valley of the Gods.The Valley of the Gods is sort of a miniature of the nearby and more famous Monument Valley, and doesn't seem to get near as much attention. No visitor center, gift shop, or bus loads of tourists.
I thought the road through here would make a good bike ride. It is reasonably smooth but has a lot of twists and turns and roller coaster ups and downs at the wash crossings.
Some of the formations have local names, like Castle Rock, Battleship Rock, and Rooster Butte. Some of the formations here are comparable to Monument Valley, but most are not as massive.
The terrain here is difficult desert. The clay in the soil prevents very much from growing. At the west end of the route is the Valley of the Gods Bed and Breakfast. It's probably very peaceful there.

Sand Island Petroglyph Site

2008-03-12T06:26:00.000-07:00

About four miles west of Bluff, Utah along the San Juan River in south east Utah is the Sand Island rafting and petroglyph site. Bluff is one of the few towns in this scenic but remote area that has some services for visitors. It is somewhat artsy and has a historic trail of preserved sandstone homes and buildings.

Sand Island is the launch point for raft trips on the San Juan River and has parking and campgrounds along with the launch ramp. The one day trip to Mexican Hat is popular.

The San Juan River is fed by snowmelt from the nearby mountains in Colorado and flows through the desert area westward to meet with the Colorado River in Lake Powell behind the Glen Canyon Dam.

The site has apparently been popular for centuries. A large panel of petroglyphs faces the river near the campground area. Mountain Sheep are popular in this panel as they are in many of the petroglyph panels in the region. Mountain Sheep aren't very common these days but they stand out in the rock art of the area.

The petroglyph panel has a clear fairly large image of the popular Kokopelli, a hump backed flute player. This image is used quite a bit commercially around the area There are Kokopelli bike shops, motels, and the image is a popular design on the jewelry that is hand made in the area.

This is probably the easiest place to find the Kokopelli. Surrounding the obvious figure there are at least five more (three visible here). There are two Kokopellis just below the large figure, and one above and to the right. In a wider view there is another to the left and the right. In another part of the overall panel there are at least two more for a total of eight.

Further west, past Mexican Hat are the Goosenecks of the San Juan, entrenched meanders that can be viewed from a small Utah State Park. The raft trip to Mexican Hat usually includes a stop at a petroglyph site near the confluence with Butler Wash. The River House Ruins site can also be accessed from the raft trips and can also be reached by hiking along the trail on the west side of Comb Ridge.

Bullfrog Crossing on Lake Powell, Utah

2007-11-23T05:25:00.000-08:00

Lake Powell is the Colorado River backed up behind the massive Glen Canyon Dam. It's upstream of the Grand Canyon and below Canyonlands National Park in southeast Utah.

The dam and lake have always been controversial among environmentalists. At the time, the area was so remote that no one knew what was being flooded, but now they wish they hadn't let it go through. There are still protests now, and calls to get rid of the dam, but it seems unlikely that will happen.

I arrived at the east side of the crossing and took the ferry as a foot passenger on the 30 minute trip to Bullfrog on the west side. I had a few minutes to look around before taking the return trip back but it was 95 degrees and a long walk from the ferry dock to where I could see a lot of cars parked so I didn't go too far. I was looking for a beach but couldn't see one.
What they seem to have a lot of there is big house boats. The marina area didn't have the smell of fish as a lot of marinas do, it had more the smell of money.

Not many little fishing boats there, only Winnebagos on water. It looks like the typical thing to do there is spend a week or more in a houseboat floating around on the long scenic lake. There weren't enough camp sites or motel rooms to account for the hundreds of cars parked in a really out of the way place.

After being at a low level for a few years due to drought, the lake is at near normal. There is a bathtub ring on the sandstone cliffs, showing where the normal level is.

I noticed there were some signs around the place warning against jumping off those cliffs into the lake. They had some action shots of a guy jumping from 70 feet and hitting the water at 45 miles per hour, then noting that his body was recovered from 230 feet under the surface.