Utah Trip Report 2014 March
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Cedar Mesa / Comb Ridge, Utah
Day 4
Arch Canyon Ruins
I started the day driving to Blanding and Monticello taking
notes about the town coming from Bluff. Then I ventured up UT-95 verifying
CR-262 northern access points. So the first part of the day was scouting
trailheads and spur roads along UT-95 recording GPS coordinate. I verified some
trailheads along CR-261 and stopped at the Kane Ranger Station for information.
I asked the ranger
for some easy ruins hikes and both forks of Mule Canyon and Arch Canyon were
mentioned. I had already hiked the South Fork up to the House on Fire Ruin previously
but there are more ruins several miles up canyon.
I decided to check out Arch Canyon where you end up hiking a
jeep trail. The trailhead was only two miles from UT-95 up Arch Canyon at a
running stream crossing. There are several BLM signs and an information board
near the trailhead. It really doesn’t take very long to reach the first ruins
which are fenced off. The top of the
ruins and fence can be seen from the jeep trail. There is a pedestrian opening
in the fence at the far right (east) end of the enclosure. I used this official
entryway into the ruins. There are only a few walls still standing and not much
to look at. The largest wall still standing was maybe 10 to 15 tall and about
the same length is free standing; it looks like a strong wind could blow it
over. There are remnants of shorter walls showing the framing for rooms here
but not much to look at. If this was your first ruins site you might be
impressed but I’ve seen a lot better.
I continue hiking up canyon and at this point the canyon
floor is rather wide with lot of brush, grass and short trees. Most of
everything is still dormant from winter. As I’m hiking up the jeep trail it
crosses a running stream several times. I’m constantly looking around searching
for signs of ruins. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I caught a granary or
something in the corner of my eye toward the right. I stop and don’t see it
with all of the tall grass and trees in my view. I take a few steps back and
can see a ruin through a slight opening in the dense vegetation down low. I
survey the canyon wall which bends slightly to the north here and suddenly I
realize there is another substantial ruins up high in an alcove. The vegetation
is dense here and the sandy dirt is wet in many places. I’m contemplating how
to get to the lower ruins because heading straight toward it wasn’t an option.
I decide to loop from the left around the densest part of the jungle and make
my way to the canyon wall that is sloping inward toward the bottom.
The ruin is
up about 20 feet from the canyon floor on a Slickrock bench. The walls for one
room are mostly intact up to about ten feet with remnants walls for several
other rooms. This is a fairly small site but the mostly intact room really
gives the feel for what the original structure was like. I take a bunch of
photos but the suns shadow was splitting the intact room in half making a
photography challenge. After looking around a little bit I discover hand prints
on the canyon wall. There are about ten hand impressions on the rock wall. I’ve
seen this before and in my opinion these were the people proclaiming that we
built this structure with our hands. It is kind of like writing a book and
signing it. I do not enter the room through the door opening because you’re not
supposed to, although it was tempting. Fortunately I stayed around long enough
where a small cloud blocked the sun momentarily allowing for better lighting of
the ruins. It must get hot here because I came across some cactus. On the way
here I came across some rather large puddles of water and photographed them on
the way out. I decided the high up ruins is out of reach for me but I did
notice a path heading in that direction, I was aware of other ruins in Arch
Canyon and arches but I only hiked about 3 miles in before turning around.
I spent the rest of the day scouting out several trailheads.
There were snow patches still hanging around in many of the shady areas.
Summary
This was a fairly busy place where I saw several jeeps and
ATVs using the jeep trail. I saw three ruins sites with two of them up close.
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