Allen Trail near South Cottonwood Road

The South Cottonwood Road access to the south side Manti-La Sal National Forest is 6.4 miles west of Blanding, Utah along Route 95. This junction is well marked. About 8.3 miles north along the Cottonwood Road there is a Forest Road junction with Road 092 to the left and Road 106 to the right heading north.

About 2.7 miles north on Road 106 there is an unmarked minor dirt road that makes a right turn and is a beginning for the Allen Trail. The Allen Trail leads north and south and is about 7.5 miles long. The north trailhead is inside the Manti-La Sal Forest but the south end of the trail is outside the boundary.

I started hiking at the beginning of the minor dirt road. For the first 0.5 miles there are views to the west toward the lower end of Hammond Canyon. Allen Canyon and Hammond Canyon are tributaries to Cottonwood Canyon.

In this general area there are Ute Mountain Indian Reservation Restricted Areas but this road and trail didn't have any posted restrictions. There might be a very old Ute settlement in this area and the agriculturally suitable land has been allotted to the tribe.

The minor dirt road fizzles out and the route continues as a trail along the sandstone shelf above the floor of Allen Canyon and below a mesa top area to the east. In the distance the high peaks of the Abajo or Blue Mountains are visible.

The Allen Trail appears to be lightly used. It appears to be used mostly by horse riders. The trail is faint in a few places but is mostly easy to follow. There are many good lookout points on the sandstone shelf.

There were several alcoves visible along the way, mostly in the white sandstone layer. I scanned them with binoculars but didn't see any visible ruins sites. The trail area vegetation is Pinon Pine and Utah Junipers. Down below in the canyon there are wide sagebrush fields and Cottonwoods are visible in some places.

I went about 3 miles in 1:20 hours to a point where there was a wide side canyon joining from the west.

The map I have showed an area that is called the Bee Hives along this segment of trail. I didn't see anything that reminded me of Bee Hives unless it was the banded mesa top area to the east of the trail. Maybe it is the combination of these mesas sitting on the red shelf that supports the trail. My return hike took 1:20 hours for a total hike of 2:40 hours for about 6 miles. I hiked on an 80 F degree early October day.

Whiskers Draw Trail

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, 6.4 miles west of Blanding along Utah Route 95 in southeast Utah. After about 8.3 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.