Tower House Ruins Trail

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. (Find the post on Posey's Trail for information on the roads to this area.)

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.