#10 in the series.

We’ve been exploring the backcountry. With 1.3 million acres, we will only see a fraction of the Bears Ears. It has been rainy, cold and quite windy. So we spent some time exploring close to Hwy 95.

House on Fire Ruin is quite popular and only a mile from the road. It’s an easy walk down the wash.

It gets its name from the striations in the rock ceiling above. When the light is good, the whole ruin looks like it’s on fire.

We ventured out on Arch Canyon road for a few miles until we came to a simple barbed-wire gate. The sign was completely bleached white. In the West, with all the BLM land and open range, it’s fine to go through and continue on. Not something we’d do back home.

But we decided to get back on the pavement, there are several things to see on Hwy 95.

Mule Canyon kiva was impressive. Situated at the high point, it had a commanding view. There were several structures and a couple of tunnels too.

A short hike to Cave Towers ruins finished up the afternoon. Beneath the tower remnants there is a huge cave-like alcove. One of the pour-overs spills into a swimming-pool sized pothole with maybe a 15-20 ft ledge above. I can just imagine some serious fun 1,000 years ago.

And I’m realizing that we focus on the seemingly fortified ruins up in the alcoves. In reality, maybe, there were structures and villages all over. The weather, the shifting sand, the flash floods, the cattle, the euroamerican immigrants have all erased or buried a lot of that. But the protected things hidden in the cliffs has fared much better. This land was not as empty as our history books would like us to believe.

---

The next day was beautiful and the wind was dying down. We chose to hike in Road Canyon, just off of Cigarette Springs road. The goal was to hike a few miles down the canyon, observe some ruins and return. But a little over half-way along, the brush got close, the sun got hot, and the water got low. Time to call it. No worries. We found a sweet tent-only spot on a point overlooking the canyon. And after I piled about 200 pounds of rocks to hold the tent down, the wind calmed magnificently.

The evening finished with a fine fire, a bottle of Telluride Red, and a silence you don’t experience very often. And the stars were outrageous.

I love finding Scorpius. The two claws radiate from the red giant star Antares. The tail hooks just above the horizon and is hard to see most of the time. Antares is 700 times larger than our Sun! If placed there its surface would reach past Mars and almost to Jupiter.

The “teapot” is part of the constellation Sagittarius. I have always thought it cool that its spout is steaming Milky Way stars up into the heavens.

Use the slider to find them and Hercules!

When the phone dies, you’ve lost your compass, and you have burned your map starting a fire to survive, maybe you’ll have a clear night! The Big Dipper is part of Ursa Major (The Bear) and is easy to recognize. And if you draw a line along the two stars in the dipper bowl you can find the North Star, Polaris. But what if it’s winter time? On the other side is Cassiopeia. She contains a set of stars shaped like a “W.” Just trace a line from the open side of the W to find Polaris in the same manner. Again, use the sliders to see!

The more you know, the less you need. – Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia

Tomorrow we are back at work! After loading up the gear, Apple Maps did an interesting thing…

…it decided we have a new home! Fascinating…

#9 in the series.

“We’ve got an aggressive schedule and we are already behind!” the lady announced as she and her husband rolled through the door as soon as we opened. “There are several things we want to see, but we absolutely have to see Capitol Reef.”

“You do know that Capitol Reef is nearly on the other side of the state, right?” Kirsten responds. She works them through a couple of itineraries. There was some back and forth between the couple, a duel of sorts. They’re still going big though, so I suggested they download some maps due to poor cell coverage. Her husband says, “My son showed me how to do that, that’s a good idea!” I give a refresher and they are out the door to far-flung points.

A young lady comes in wanting to loop up to Natural Bridges National Monument with her friend. She’s excited about the day. It’s already around 2pm, so I ask a few questions. And then finally,

“There won’t be any gas stations until you loop back to Blanding, are you good on gas?”

“How far is that?”

“Maybe 70-ish miles?” I reply.

“Oh, I have almost half a tank, I should be good.”

Sometimes a crowd shows up all at once. Sometimes there is a little marriage counseling involved. Sometimes, someone just wants to talk.

There seems to be about 10 percent of the folks that are not looking for much more than a restroom. Or a place, like the native plant garden, to allow their pet to relieve themselves. Although it’s not posted, the BEEC doesn’t allow animals into the garden space. A nose full of prickly pear might not be the best. One lady came inside from the garden with her dog looking for a restroom. When she was told that she couldn’t have it inside or the garden, she said she’d put it in the car and come back in. She didn’t but she did leave us a full doggy bag in the parking area. LOL. Offended I guess.

But these folks are few and far between. The vast majority are interested in Bears Ears and intrigued by the co-stewardship of the five Tribes, the BLM, and the National Forest Service. And they are concerned about how the National Monument will fare under the current administration. By and large, all talk is engaging, fun, and upbeat. And of course, tall tales are told.

“I’ve got to charge my phone and pee!” my favorite visitor (so far) declared as she came through the door in a blur, prioritizing her needs. Popping the charger in an outlet, phone on the floor, she heads for the loo.

She sold her house last August and has been cruising the countryside in an old Prius. Well, judging by the canyon dust, much more than just cruising. The car is packed to the gills and she’s sleeping in it (or under the stars!). And she has now found herself a happy place for a couple of hours. The BEEC has fast and free internet/WiFi. It’s well-suited to being a tambo (Quechua for a place of rest), or maybe an eddy (more on that in the future).

She’s looking for someone to talk to and I fit the bill. We talk all things at length; the Bears Ears Partnership, places to see, politics, and the meaning of life. We eventually come around to the Prius, something I am quite familiar with. She tells me how a mechanic thought it was in great shape and that her oil quality and level looked fine. On the road six weeks later, she decided to get the oil changed, and the quick lube place told her that the level was terribly low, very dirty and that she could have damaged her engine! So she had it changed. I cautioned her about the quick-lube places and said I would trust the mechanic’s word over theirs. I looked the car over, the oil was now fresh but a little over-filled. There were three different air pressure readings in the tires. A leak or just bad service? I noticed that whoever replaced her new tires had also replaced two of the valve stems but left the original 2007 pressure monitoring stems on the other two, a good source for leaks. Their batteries were long since dead and didn’t work anyway, they should have been replaced. She’d put a piece of black tape over the low-pressure warning light inside (we have done just the same thing to ours lol).

I see this shop treatment all the time and it makes me mad. A woman seems to always get different treatment at many of these places. Just ask my wife and daughters. A good mechanic is gold.

“Do you have an air compressor?”

“No, but I could use a bicycle pump.”

“Yes, do you have one?”

“No.”

“Have you checked the air pressure in your spare?”

“I did two years ago when I had to use it.”

“How about the auxiliary battery in the back?”

“Yes, I replaced that!”

After a few more pointers and a good charge on the phone, she was off to explore. I love it. I wondered later if her model had an auxiliary port buried in the center console like ours was. She may not even know it’s there…

After “work,” we wandered up Cottonwood Wash road. A family had worked for years to find buyers that could conserve their land and protect it from development. Finally the Wildlands Conservancy acquired the 320 acres of Speaking Springs, situated next to the monument.

So many blooms. And we found a “Sacred Datura.” Used for centuries for various things. Medicinal, spiritual, recreational. Also known as Western Jimsonweed, it can be deadly and all of it is poisonous.

And for dinner – you guessed it – we’re back at Comb Ridge. The chef now waves at me when we come in. Tonight our waiter is Charles, and he likes to sit down and chat a bit as folks decide what they want to eat. It’s gonna be the Funky Chicken pizza, there’s just something about those pickles. We talk about “therapy day” and Charles understands it. As a waiter, he’s an ear to talk to and a shoulder to lean on.

As we settle in, a couple comes up and greets us by name. They had been in the BEEC early in the day and they just wanted to thank us for all the advice and information. They had a great day on the landscape. I’m just glad they made it out alive…

We actually saw several people that had been through the Center in the past couple of days. When Charles returns, I tell him that we’ll have to keep the therapy discussion low, we may have “clients” in here! He nods, “I know nothing.”

A fine day. Tomorrow we’re aiming for House on Fire and a few places nearby.

#8 in the series.

Our 36th!

We really wanted to do Moon House on our 36th anniversary. But 50 mph gusts on top of Cedar Mesa just didn’t sound like a good idea. Carolyn had mentioned the Sutcliffe Vineyard near Cortez, with wine tasting and pizza and it sounded like a great alternative for the day. So in the early morning we hiked up Bluff Canyon, literally across the street from our camp spot. Find 8th Street West and just keep walking…

The combination captures the scant moisture and slowly breaks down the mineral soil, creating an environment for bigger plants. One approach to exploring an area is to use the sandy washes to navigate up the finger canyons and avoid the soils. And sometimes you have to make the call of whether to continue or retreat when the wash gets too prickly.

Just hiking along, a big stone reveals a petroglyph, either a set of eight circles or a spiral, both popular themes in the area.

Well, poison ivy for one thing. Yeah, a no-go toward the top. The wind was picking up too. So we high-tailed it back out.

Driving to the vineyard, you could see the dust in the air. Hovenweap road was down to one lane for a couple of miles. All of the big, spring-loaded construction signs were laid flat by the wind, and the road workers were having a time keeping their STOP/SLOW signs under control. As we crossed into Colorado and down along McElmo creek, things began to change. We were still in the middle of nowhere, but there was water here! I’m not sure whether it was McElmo or an aquifer, but bright green fields came into view.

Hoping for wood-fired pizza, we found that today was not the day. The veggie charcuterie was just fine, and we sampled a few reds, securing a Telluride Red for a special occasion. Another couple was celebrating their 46th anniversary too!

Navigating a giant Rottweiler and a shepherd-mix, neither of which even lifted their head to say goodbye, we bounced our way back into Bluff.

Ya know, we both thought it was pretty great.

---

Moon House Ruins

We’d planned a full day for Moon House and started out around 8am. Rolling up Comb Wash Road it was a gorgeous morning. The Comb was beckoning us to come and see. A few ranchers were herding cattle in the cool morning and the dirt track was wide and reasonably smooth.

Turning off onto Snow Flat Road, this began to change. We were climbing Cedar Mesa now, and there was much scraped rock to navigate. The next 15 miles took about an hour and a half.

We became a little confused at the parking area and ended up walking a 4WD road about a mile and a half to the foot trail for Moon House.

This ruin has a limit of 20 visitors per day in order to protect it. Honestly, Snow Flat Road is a pretty good first line of defense.

This is a lovely canyon.

It’s a short hike, but it’s not easy. The slickrock top falls away and you can’t see where the footholds are.

The rock cairns are your friends (most of the time) and help guide the way. You have to be careful on the sandstone pour-overs because they can lead you to place where it’s smooth and you are exposed on the rock. Down below “somewhere” is a five-foot ledge to a pile of rocks we need to negotiate. A good second line of defense.

We teamed up with a couple of gentlemen from California and worked our way down. After that it was a scramble to the canyon floor and a climb up the other side.

Can you see it yet?

How about a little closer…

How about now?

Just incredible. And the balanced rock outside was amazing.

This is one of the few places that people are allowed inside. It’s just too easy to bump a wall even if you have the best intentions. The goal here is to “belly” into the room through the small opening without using the walls. Once inside, it’s a row of small rooms. The ceiling is black, maybe just from smoke or maybe intentionally done. And you can see the ruin’s namesake, the Moon, dotted in white along the wall above the white band near the middle of the photo.

We’ve heard some discussion that the wall on the left may have been added later, possibly as a defense. It has that flavor, it blends into the bluff and the high windows may have been lookouts. Or merely for light and ventilation. Probably no one knows.

The rooms have black ceilings and each has an interesting nook in one corner. It doesn’t look like they were used for fires though. The walls separating the rooms are made with straight sticks tied together and covered with mud.

The white band/moon motif circles the rooms, and even the separating wall is painted black above it. Remember how you decorated your kids’ room with stars on the ceiling? One room contained corn cob remnants.

Such an interesting place when you consider a family or families lived here. Waking up to the awesome balanced rock every day would have been something.

We do know these people used ladders. Maybe there were hidden places to get on top of the mesa. The cottonwoods indicate a water source below. Wouldn’t it be wild in a storm?

We retraced our steps and teamed up with our new friends to navigate the shelf. An incredible place to ponder.

All told, we counted 17 folks today. A 4wd with four was coming in as we were walking the road out, but we didn’t get the sense that all would make the hike.

Another 10 miles of mostly scraped rock got us to Hwy 261. Down the Moki Dugway once more and around the Valley of the Gods. The Cut in Comb Ridge directed us back to our temporary home.

Dinner in Bluff was at the invitation of Kirsten, Josh and their two dogs. Josh was into sour dough and we enjoyed a wonderful pizza and told tall tales and at least one true one. He told us how he acquired the HUGE elk rack on the wall above the living room door. Apparently he saw elk sign on Comb Ridge, a very rare thing. Following it, he found the old bull had died and nosed into the sand. Once the wildlife resources confirmed it was natural causes, they let him keep it. Very cool.

Quite a day, I would say.

#7 in the series.

I find sometimes that I have the lyrics wrong on old songs. Back in the day, lyrics weren’t readily available, and sometimes you just had to fill them in to keep the tune going.

As I was hiking out of Bluff canyon alone (I’d forgotten my trusty cane hiking staff and had to retrieve it) the wash was dry and the wind was beginning to pick up, the sand was beginning to scour the landscape and my ankles. America’s “A Horse with No Name” came to mind. Especially because we’ve been watching the weather back home in Tennessee, where it has been a rough ride of near-constant storms:

I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name 
It felt good to be out of the rain 
In the desert you can’t remember your name 
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no fame

I’ve been recently surprised to learn that I’ve had the lyrics wrong, Dewey Bunnell actually wrote:

I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name 
It felt good to be out of the rain 
In the desert you can remember your name 
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain

I dunno. I think I like my version better. On the one hand, I find humility in that there’s no need for a name because there’s no one to praise you. But on the other, maybe Bunnell is saying he now knows who he is. You decide.

The past three or four days have been a whirlwind. We made reservations for Moon House, but the wind predictions for Tuesday convinced us to shift it down a day. So we explored a couple of ruins and petroglyph panels close by and then ventured up to Blanding to The Dinosaur Museum and Edge of the Cedars State Park.

Some of the artwork is truly beautiful and interesting. It’s disappointing that some only have seen their value as targets for practice. I don’t know when this was done, so I hope we have overcome this type of disrespect. But I also know that we have to be diligent in teaching the values we hold dear. Always work to be done.

I became fascinated with a group of four stars chiseled into the corner of a stone. Very nicely done.

The images stick in my mind, and I wonder what their purpose may have been in their community.

The Dinosaur Museum

The Dinosaur Museum was an unexpected treat. Located in Blanding, it’s bigger than it first appears. And it has an engaging feel with the displays. You’re drawn into the debate on feathers and how dinosaurs and birds fit into that evolutionary tree. And you see how the scientific views have changed over time, always with vigorous debate.

In the back, there’s a room dedicated to dinosaurs in film, they’ve even acquired some of the movie props used before movies were talkies!

It’s a first-rate museum, and only $6!

Edge of the Cedars State Park

Edge of the Cedars State Park resulted in mental overload for me. Packed full of ancestral archaeology, it would take a couple of days to soak it all in.

This spearpoint is around 13,000 years old. The edge is so fine as to be nearly transparent at the tip.

A great display of arrow points. Zooming in on the bottom-middle section, we find an “ammo belt” of points!

And then there is the incredible pottery! Edge of the Cedars has a world class collection of Ancestral Puebloan pottery. I’m only showing one selection, frankly because there is just not a way to convey the collection here. Go see it for yourself!

Some of the pieces were found by explorers like you and me. And a couple of folks went to great lengths to protect the finds until officials arrived to fully protect them. A discussion of one such find is at the YouTube link below.

Already overloaded, I rounded the corner in the museum and came across their storage room where they rotate out the displays. Wow.

Finishing up, we exited through a display of high school artists and this one really jumped out at me. A twelfth-grader.

An afternoon well spent I’d say!

We’re still on the books for Moon House, so stayed tuned!

#6 in the series.

“okay,” I squeaked out. Patricia got the biggest laugh out of that feebleness and chuckled until I fell fast asleep. I was sooo tired. I didn’t even hear the coffee grinder the next morning! How is that possible? A full couple of days, working at the BEEC until midafternoon and then exploring the landscape. I guess it caught up with me.

She said the wind howled last night and the now-typical ultra-fine layer of sand on the table in the camper confirmed it. Must of happened.

“They’re in one of the drawers! It has a canyon wren on it.” Ah, there they are. I pull one out of the plastic.

“Thanks!” She blasts back out the door and is gone. Hmm, I guess I could have at least gotten her name. Should she have paid for that? The book was wrinkled and sun-dried, apparently she had filled it out floating down the San Juan.

After another “hard” day, Patricia and I were looking for a late afternoon hike and Carolyn, an education specialist at the BEEC, suggested we go find the petroglyph panel in lower Butler Wash. It’s close-by and perfect for the afternoon.

Taking a left toward the Bluff airport off of Hwy 163, we immediately cross a one-lane cattle guard. We’re supposed to take a hard right at the temporary corral where there is an old drill hole. The corral had packed up and left, but the black pipe for the drill hole is there and we ride off into the dirt. Bouncing along a couple of miles of bedrock and sand, we arrive at a large “pour over.”

And just like it sounds, it’s an exposed slab of sandstone bluff where a section has worn smooth from water flow, forming a spout of sorts over the edge.

In the picture, you can see where flowing water has formed the pothole on the left edge and then the smooth spout as it goes over the edge. The trail forms at the rock pile just on the other side. It’s an old “dugway,” a route down into the wash that takes advantage of a descending sandstone ledge. It drops into the greenery on the far right.

At the trail entrance is some “cowboy art” carved into the stone from the 1930’s. The horse carving is a pretty nice piece of work!

Down into the wash we find a small stream from the recent rains. We cross it several times as we wander through the lush grass and shrubby trees.

It’s a bit overgrown but eventually we pop out of it and make it to the San Juan. It looks like chocolate milk from all the sediment it typically carries.

Turning upstream along the bluff, we find art work everywhere. These must be quite old, I guessing, based on the fact at how well they blend into the rock patina. Lots if interesting characters. What do they mean?

We’re up above the river, so anyone traveling down it could easily see them. What messages are they providing?

We hear a bird call. Could it be? Looking up, we see a peregrine falcon land on a shelf hundreds of feet above us.

Wow! One for the bucket list. It must be nesting, and it flies back off in a few seconds and on downriver. Sorry, no picture on this one.

It’s funny how much faster it seemed climbing out. About a 3-mile round trip and a pleasant afternoon.