Utah Trip April 2014-1
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Day 4
McCloyd Canyon / Road Canyon / Fallen Roof Ruins
I started the day heading for Mccloyd Canyon. From UT-261 I
headed east on Snow Flat Rd. It didn’t take long to come to a fork on this dirt
road which transitions into a 2-track. I headed right and found myself at the
entrance to a ranch within a mile or so. The fork and the ranch road don’t show up on
the map so I returned to the fork and headed down the other direction. By the
time I made it 3.4 mile down the road it had deteriorated into 4WD trail or
just driving cross country. I turned around and headed back to the highway.
I now started heading for Road Canyon and turned onto
Cigarette Springs Rd going east. Since I had scouted this trailhead on a previous
trip I knew exactly where to go and made a beeline to it. From the parking area
is a worn path heading northeast for entry into a ravine feeding into Road
Canyon. There was no getting lost between the worn path and rock piles marking
the way down the switchbacks. At the bottom I continued northeast until the
junction with Road Canyon and headed right or mostly east from there. I’m all
business heading east looking for the Fallen Roof Ruins and did not stop to
take any photographs. I really didn’t know if I could see the ruins from the
dry streambed or not. I was looking for any evidence of hikers breaking to the
left (footprints) or a rock pile marking the way. I did know there a rock
pinnacle nearby which I easily spotted before seeing a rock pile in the
streambed. It turns out you cannot see the ruins from the streambed and you
have hike up the Slickrock canyon wall quite a ways before locating the alcove.
I arrived at the Fallen Roof Ruins which I recognized from
photographs, took GPS coordinates with the Garmin and snapped shots with the
Olympus TG-830 which tags the GPS coordinates. Climbing up to the ruins was a
little bit of a challenge for me but not really that difficult. I dropped
everything (backpack, tripod) and unpack the Canon T4i and start snapping away
freehand at first and then with the tripod. One thing I have learned the hard
way is to take photographs of the prize before anything happens. Sometimes it’s
the sun or clouds or rain or snow or a crowd of people. You just never know
what is going to happen. I just got to the point where I could catch my breath
when I noticed an old man in uniform with a walking stick was making his way
toward the ruins. This was a volunteer ranger who had maybe five or ten years
on me. We chatted for awhile and it turns out that this type of ranger
regularly hikes to the ruins to do a status check on them. I got some great
shots even with the point & shoot camera.
We parted ways as I headed down hill. The Slickrock had only
a few rock piles and there was a lot of tight Switch-backing involved so trying
to follow the waypoints back down got confusing but eventually I made it back to
the streambed. The canyon had a fair amount of short trees and other
vegetation. It was also littered with boulders and other minor obstacles. I
snapped some canyon shots on the way back. I wasn’t in a hurry to get back to
the entry switch-backs which only three years ago would have taken me half a
day to get up. I found the rock arrow I had made with seven rocks pointing to
the ravine and the way up. I took my
time and spent maybe an hour going up to the top.
Summary
This was a great hike and the Fallen Roof Ruins is very
photogenic.
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