Arch Canyon to Comb Ridge Trail

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

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.

Three Kiva Pueblo Neighbors

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

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

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.