S. Utah Anasazi Cliff Dwellings Without the Crowds

[GunnIt]

In 1985 I took my first solo fight out of Blanding UT., I was flying my "vintage" 1953 Cessna 170B (I called it vintage, however, it was old, cheap and all I could afford at the time). I soared away from the Blanding airport, my head was filled with the exhilaration of finally being alone and in sole control of an airplane. I headed towards Kayenta. It is hard to get lost in this country if you follow Comb Ridge. It was early morning and the sun was washing over the horizon and Comb Ridge. The ridge stretched off to the horizon as far as I could see and I thought how much it resembled a giant wave about to crest as it washed over a vast sandy emptiness. Soon enough I landed in Kayenta, I walked around the airplane soaking up the
euphoria of my first solo flight. I took off on my return flight to Blanding; on the return trip the sun was washing the eastern side of Comb Ridge and I flew below the ridge line, "on the deck", just because I could. As I passed one of the many arch overhangs of the cresting wave I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a shrouded castle. I swung the plane to the right and made a 360 degree turn, as I approached the canopied arch I pumped in full flaps and got low and slow. The plane drifted past the protected arch and for first time in my life I saw what I recognized as an ancient cliff dwelling, it was just a glimpse but I said to myself that some day I should come back and endeavor to see it up close and personal.


Fast forward two and a half decades. For fathers day we decide to take a short family vacation to Comb Ridge, our second in the last year. About a year ago we arrived at Butler Wash late in the afternoon to spend 5 days hiking and exploring the ruins and rock art, that night we got hammered by a major
monsoon storm and woke up to a raging Butler Wash that was not going to be crossed for several days. This time we elected to travel the other side of Comb Ridge between Hwy 163 and Hwy 95, the Comb Wash road. But first we had to get there.

It is about a 4 hour drive from Marble Canyon to Comb Wash, first through Page then past White and then Black Mesa then looms Tsegi Mesa, home to some of Americas most spectacular cliff dwellings and Navajo National Monument.

Tsegi Mesa sits on the Navajo Reservation and is a spectacular backdrop for several intact cliff dwellings.

We stopped for a quick visit to see what is considerd to be one of the most intact Anasazi cliff dwellings that exist today. The downside is that it is a big tourist attraction and there are big crowds. The ruins sit in a canyon far below the observation area beneath a huge overhang.

This is what it looks like with a long telephoto lens.

We ran into this guy on the way out. My son wanted to take him with us but my wife was not going to have a big gopher snake in any jeep that she was riding in!

We hit the road and headed towards our destination, Comb Ridge. But first we had to drive through Monument Valley, a renown tourist attraction.

We continued on past Mexican Hat.

Soon enough we arrived at our destination, Comb Ridge and turned onto the Comb Wash Road which runs between Hwy 163 to the south, to Hwy 95 to the north. The road travels 18.3 miles along the west face of Comb Ridge. This road is also along the historic route of the famous Mormon Hole in the Rock Expedition.

It was getting late in the day despite being just before the summer solstice and the longest day of the year so we decided to start looking for a good place to camp. We decided to set up a base camp near Butler Wash, under some massive cottonwood trees that were likely around when the Anasazi were here. We set up camp and enjoyed a star filled night of watching for satellites. Day 2: Wendy cooked a camp breakfast while we planned our day.

 

[GunnIt]

This area offers the best public access to see cliff dwellings in a remote setting outside of a National Park or monument. We decided to drive down a couple of miles to Mule Canyon and hike into some cliff dwellings in the lower stretch of the canyon. The access road turns off of Comb Wash and crosses a creek just before in enters Mule Canyon. The road dead ends at a couple of trails that lead to 3 different ruins that are relatively easy to access. You can see the first set of ruins on the cliff face behind the jeep.

We scrambled up to investigate the first cliff dwelling which consisted of several sleeping rooms and storage areas. The dwellings were likely inhabited for a very short time in Anasazi history. They were likely built AD 1200 and abandoned before AD 1400, some of the dwellings were only occupied for 30 or 40 years which would translate into a generation for a family at that time.

My son, Troy, looks into one of the sleeping rooms, notice the soot blackened cliff froms years of cooking fires.

The construction of these rooms is with native rock and adobe, notice this close up shot of adobe and what appears to be grass or plant matter that was likely used as a binding agent.

Adjacent to this cliff dwelling and most all that we visited were petroglyps. I'm continually fascinated by the different styles and types that we encounter.

The rarest find and most interesting is Pictographs which are not inscribed into the rock like petroglyphs but are painted or pigments on the rock. You can imagine that these only exist in the areas that are most protected from the environment and weathering. Here is a lovely set of pictograph hand prints with my wifes hand held out as a perspective. We do not touch anything in or around these dwellings and endeavor to leave them exactly as we found them and encourage everyone else to do the same.

Here is a view of Lower Mule Canyon from the perspective of one of the ruins. Notice the jeep in the lower portion of the photo. We spent what remained of day 2 exploring the rest of the lower canyon and other ruins.

Day 3: We got an early start and headed towards Arch Canyon which is the next major drainage north of Mule Canyon. We went past Hwy 95 and continued past a large tract of private land to the Arch Canyon Trail Head, this is also near the trail head for Hotel Rock which we saved for another day. As you enter Arch Canyon you come to this lage anasazi ruin built against a cliff. This ruin is surrounded by a fence to keep out cattle and help preserve the ruin.

This was a very major ruin in the day. It included underground ceremonial kivas and was home to lots of people.

The size of this wall gives some scale to the size of the ruin.

After leaving this ruin the road enters the canyon by driving though a creek for several yards and is just a taste of what is to come, crossing the creek an additional 50 times before reaching the end of the trail another 10 miles ahead. Not that it is a real difficult trail but it is one that in the upper end is rough with lots of rocks and tight turns. This is not a trail for low clearance vehicles or someone who is particular about keeping their vehicle in perfect shape.

It is not long before we see the next ruin which is on the other side of the creek and requires a good scramble up a talus slope and into a large overhanging cliff face. This is the best ruin we have explored so far. That tiny red dot in the left cent of the photo is my jeep.

This is a fairly large and complete ruin.

With a spectacular vista of the canyon and the creek below.

Here Troy explains to us what we are seeing from a 10-year-old perspective which has something to do with an anasazi washing machine, microwave oven, and ipod holder.

There was another ruin above this one that headed up to. Then the long climb back to down to the jeep and we headed up canyon.

If you make this trip be sure to bring a good pair of binoculars. We spotted numerous cliff dwellings perched on the high ledges of the canyon walls.

Here is one of particular interest that would be a tough climb to access.

And here it is as it appears though a 600MM lens.

Here is another that I can hardly imagine the difficulty in daily access.

A closer view thought a telephoto.

 

[scarysharkface]

Beautiful!

 

[GunnIt]

We continued on toward the end of the trail where we saw this arch. There are others but about this time dark clouds rolled in and the wind began to howl. This is no place to be caught in a big rainstorm so beat feet back to camp. We have been on some spectacular trails over the years but we agreed that Arch Canyon will move to the top of our list.

Day 4: Today I planed for us all to hike into one of the canyons on Cedar Mesa. The BLM has recently changed the process and now requires permits to most of these canyons. I had read about the process on one of the BLM placards and it made no mention of the canyon that we wanted to hike into requiring a permit, the other canyons just required you to pay an entrance fee into an envelope. So we headed back up Comb Wash about 12 miles where we intersected the Snow Flat Rd, which headed to the canyon we planned to hike. Here is a nice view of Comb Ridge as we started up the Snow Flat Rd.

A short way up the road we came across another placard so I stopped to see what it had to say.The Placard said that in order to hike into the canyon that we had chose, we needed to arrive at the Grand Gulch Ranger Station and apply for the permit in person. This ranger station lies on Hwy 261, Snow Flat Road is 22 miles long, rough at the top and middle, the ranger station lies a few miles north of the junction on 261. When we travel and camp in Utah we stay on Arizona time, it was 10 AM Arizona time so we decided to head on over, pick up the permit then back-track and hike the canyon. On the way we encountered some great views of Cedar Mesa.

We arrived at the ranger station and it looked closed. It was! They are open until 12 noon (it was now 12:30 PM) and the station was closed. You would have thought that this would be mentioned somewhere on the placards but it was not. Not one to let a bureaucrat ruin my day I made other plans. We drove pavement back to Upper Mule Canyon and visited the Mule Canyon Towers. There were 5 or 6 of these towers on the edge of Mule Canyon, some think that they might have been used as signal towers.

Below the towers is a set of ruins that takes some rock scrambling to get to. One the way we passed through this incredible grotto with a flowing spring.

Replete with columbine flowers growing from the saturated walls.

A view of a ruin wall with the Tower in the background.

I scrambled out to the edge of this lower ruin and peered over the edge and realized that there was nothing between me and the bottom of the canyon, several hundred feet below. I sat down on a rock and contemplated who or what had driven these people to such a precarious foothold on life, whatever it was it way beyond my comprehension. It was time to head back to camp and perpare for our departure the next day.

Day 5. We headed back down Comb Wash taking our time to look at the petroglyps on the large boulders that are along the road at the base of Comb Ridge. We headed over toward Bluff to visit the Sand Island Petroglyph site on the San Juan River. This is one of the most extensive petroglyph sites that to be found anywhere and you can drive right up to it.

These petroglyps are from 300 to 3000 years old and represent my different cultures.

I consider this a must see if you are anywhere close on don't forget to bring your binoculars to get a a good look at the details of these inscriptions.

It was lunch in Bluff then back across the Reservation and
HOME

 

[roverrocks]

Beautiful!! You had one great adventure! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Hill Bill E.]

Great pics and write up! I really like the '2 views' with the camera, really help put things in perspective for those of us who haven't been there.

 

[HMR]

Amazing! Thanks for sharing.

 

[plm61]

Incredible history and a fantastic trip report.

 

[haven]

Thanks for sharing!

The Kane Gulch Ranger Station on Cedar Mesa is the jumping-off point for the trip to the House on Fire ruin, sometimes called the Flaming House, in Mule Canyon. It's a great favorite of photographers, who should arrive at the ruin in the morning to catch the full effect. Some photos of House on Fire here http://www.naturalbornhikers.com/trails/houseonfire.html

 

[Token]

Looks like a great area to snoop around.. We're headed that way in a week or few and I've been looking for interesting stuff to chew up a day or two.. The Comb Ridge area may just fit the bill..

 

[F5driver]

Another great report. We'll be passing by your place on the 26th on our way to UT. Will you be around?

 

[chicken corners]

Thank you.

 

[cchoc]

Very cool report. I'm starting to plan a 2-4 week trip to southern Utah for next spring and I'd like to spend as much time camping and driving off road as I can. I come out there every spring but usually end up in established campgrounds but want to break out of that rut, and reports like yours are a great resource for me. Thanks.

 

[Lichen]

I have got to go and check this area out this fall. Thank you.

 

[cellularsteve2]

Excellent write up and photos. I got no work done

I have been on the Moki Dugway and have wanted to explore more in that area.
I am planning a trip in late August to Southern Utah so may have to get over there. How is the weather there in August?