Utah Trip Report 2014 March
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Cedar Mesa / Comb Ridge, Utah
Day 6
Mule Canyon North Fork
I wanted a simple and low risk hike before heading home. I
had hiked the south fork a few years back so today it would be the north fork
of Mule Canyon. I drove to CR-263 and down to the bridge that crosses the north
fork and parked near the bridge. There was a large BLM information board at the
trailhead. There was a fair amount of long water puddles at the start of this
hike with a mixture of dirt, Slickrock, small boulders and vegetation.
Everything is dormant but there is melting snow here that is feeding the
puddles.
This is one of those places where you look at an alcove
trying to figure out if it is a manmade structure or nature’s building blocks.
The first site I came to I had a hard time deciding if it was a granary or just
the way the rocks stacked. I decided it was remnant of a granary.
The next sight was obvious with walls 4 or 5 feet tall and
cement filling in the cracks. I don’t know how they made the cement but most of
the cracks had material filling in the holes. One of the walls had a tension
crack splitting it from top to bottom. This wasn’t really an alcove but rather
a overhang protecting these structures. This was a red sandstone structure. The
cracked wall also had a tilt to it which was more evidence of physical stress
on it. Actually it may be what is holding up the roof, the canyon wall is
cracked horizontally about a foot above the walls looking like it is ready to
break away.
I’ve come across a third site with very little left of the
walls and nearby is remnants of a small granary jammed into a small horizontal
alcove or maybe its nature’s building blocks.
The streambed had sand with water in it in many places. I
stepped across a puddle and my left foot sank into about six inches of mud.
There were a number of Slickrock puddles here too. I really enjoyed this hike
because of the variety of terrain and couldn’t decide which one I liked more,
north or south. It was definitely wintry with a lot of snow when I hiked the
south fork several years ago.
I returned to the vehicle and headed home.
I put the photos on my web site. http://www.slotcanyonsutah.com
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