We’re in our last week. We’ve covered a lot of territory, seen so many things, and talked to so many people. The temperature has climbed considerably in the past few days. Early morning hikes are best, there’s just too much sunshine to do much in the afternoon. The humidity has been running 13 to 18 percent and it’s hard to stay hydrated.
The camper water heater sounded an alarm the other day. It turns out the incoming water was hotter than the set temperature!
Canyon dust (or spice melange) is ubiquitous and permeates everything. Even the clouds were pink yesterday, their undersides tinted by reflection from the sandy desert.
One early morning, we were hiking along a sandy two-track. The area was open for grazing, with cow dung scattered among the bushes and grasses. I became lost in thought and I heard Patrica say, “Snake.” She was a few steps behind me and as I turned back toward her, the little rattlesnake scooted back into the den it had apparently commandeered from a lizard. A cozy little spot with a shady bush nearby. It had created a little depression in the sand and was enjoying the morning – and I had nearly stepped on it.
Knowing how my mind works and the fact we were coming back this way, I marked the location on my GPS app. We hiked on up to the gap in the Comb. There was a good-sized ruin and the gap was nice and flat, probably even suitable for agriculture a thousand years ago. Oddly, we didn’t find any rock art, who knows why.
On the return I watched for my GPS waypoint and, you guessed it, our friend was back in his spot. I am not sure which species, maybe a “western” rattlesnake. As we investigated, he scooted back in his lizard hole and he never rattled.
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Notice my sandal print. Mind how you go.
The day was rewarded with some fantastic pottery sherds, maybe the biggest we’ve seen. Patricia has the eye and spied them both, just lying on the ground.
It’s important to put them back where you found them, for a number of reasons:
An archaeological survey relies on placement to piece together how people lived. Putting them on display or in a pile destroys that information.
Pulling them out and placing them on rocks ruins the experience of discovery for the next visitor.
It’s flat out illegal to take them, according to President Theodore Roosevelt’s awesome Antiquities Act of 1906.
These are sacred things to many tribes.
Again, mind how you go.
A pot where a woven object has been pressed into the clay before firing.A pot handle! Pretty cool.
So far, the only souvenirs we’re bringing backer the stickers and spines in my feet! Ah, the memories…
Today we finished up our last day. In general, we’ve had 30 to 60 visitors a day, today was 54. It’s a bittersweet thing for sure. We hope to be back next year, and we wish the best for the BEEC and VWR. And especially for Kirsten and Carolyn, as they continue their mission of education and respect.
The Comb is sublime. And it is not a museum, something that I am finding that travel bloggers convey as they show you how to find and check off the ruins. In reality it’s an expansive and living land that many tribes still return to as their ancestral home. Like Grandma’s house, the old homeplace, or maybe your old family cemetery.
Many of us explorers treat adventures this way. Find the thing, get a selfie with it, tell everyone else about it. Talk about how careful we should be, even though our selfie shows us near the ruin with our unleashed (and uncollared) dog. Unfortunately, the number one threat to all of the ancestral sites is not extraction, prospecting, or cattle, it’s visitation.
When you visit, if you ever should, we hope you would achieve a certain personal “stillness.” A reflectiveness that incorporates the surrounding awe into your place in this world. We’ve found this doesn’t come right away. Passing through with just enough time to squeeze in a couple of hikes or run the roads, you won’t understand it. For ourselves, even after working through our Visit With Respect training, we didn’t have it at first either. It needs to seep into you at its own pace.
Comb Ridge is a natural wonder, an eroded 80-mile-long monocline that presents itself as a giant 1,000 foot high wave, breaking to the west, frozen in time. The western slope is near-vertical, and there are only a couple of roads that cross the ridge. The eastern side, however, is much more sloped and has eroded into hundreds of canyons and alcoves. The Comb gets its name from this erosion that extends to the ridge and, forming many peaks, is reminiscent of a rooster’s coxcomb.
Borrowed from WikiMedia, this photo gives you an idea. Looking south, the crest is breaking right.
Trying to climb from Comb Wash in the west, one faces a loose talus of boulders followed by sandy scree up to a multi-hundred foot rock face. From Butler Wash in the east however, the Navajo Sandstone is much more agreeable; mystically and massively eroded into slickrock: canyons and alcoves, pour-overs and potholes, hoodoos and rocks near their tipping points.
Click on any of the images for the full-size view. Use the “back” button on your browser to return!
Side-by-side canyons coming from the rim pour over into huge pools. The areas around the pools are lush but the dry wash below returns to solid slickrock with nothing to indicate these little oases upstream exist.
On our early morning hike today, we were dumbfounded at the beauty of this place. The slickrock is so amazing and so inviting. It is also unnerving.
While the grip is incredible, the petrified sand dunes roll off in all directions and are heavily weathered into deep slots and overhangs. We found ourselves lying on our bellies and inch-worming our way to the lip of the rim for a look-see to the west. And going up is quite different than going down. Climbing a rounded slope facing the stone makes you brave. But turning around, trying to come down on your heels with miles of sky in front of you just rubs against your brain’s better judgement. But today…today was a barefoot paradise for me, the trail was well-marked, and the grade was steady. And after our extended visit to an expansive petroglyph, we followed the wave to its crest. I was floating, Heaven on Earth.
Monument Valley far away, Valley of the Gods a bit closer, Cedar Mesa near and on the right, and Comb Wash in the foreground.
Surveying Monument Valley in the distance, we were surprised to feel a little shade. The Comb had pushed the westerly morning breeze up forming a line of light clouds.
They were now drifting and spreading off to the east as a long line above the rim, a natural contrail.
Comb Wash Road below, is over 800 feet down.
Working our way back down from the rim, we met a lone hiker who was on his way up. I mentioned that Patricia had found the fossilized remains of a sand worm from Dune (see for yourself).
Patricia found a fossilized sand worm!Trail Ninja has her Maker hooks and is ready to ride Shai-Hulud…
Seeing it, he grinned and responded, “Ah, a new mythology.”
I mentioned Ed Abbey and he said he had just finished “Desert Solitaire” a few months ago.
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Early morning has its own surprises. This Winged Sandpuff was in full flower at 8am. By 11am it was completely closed up. Only breakfast hours for the bees…
We talked about how Abbey’s predictions from the 1960’s were coming to pass. Abbey was the first modern “resident” of Arches National Park back when it had just been declared a National Monument. Barely a rough dirt road and with zero amenities. His job was caretaker of the 30,000+ acres, with basic chores that included cleaning the camp areas – and if he had to – interacting and conversing with the few visitors. He did this for months while living in a run down government trailer. It had electricity when the diesel generator was working, but he hated the noise and only ran it when absolutely necessary. The trailer had been empty of humans for some time, and it was heavily infested with mice. That is until he co-opted and co-habitated with a large bull snake for a few weeks. Problem solved.
Abbey predicted that when the road into Arches became paved, its soul would be obscured. The unparalleled beauty that forms its own mythology would be lost in the traffic. When the first survey crew came through in a jeep and placed marker pins for the new road, Abbey pulled them up. He knew it was futile, but he felt better just the same.
And now today, nearby Moab is overwhelmed and the Arches National Park requires a staggered entrance regime. It’s an effort to limit the long line of tourists who want to drive through, somehow get a glimpse of the sublime, and make it to dinner by 7.
In the visitor’s center, we’ve had complaints from some visitors – and initially from we ourselves – that the BLM just doesn’t do enough. There just isn’t enough signage, and the roads are rough, sometimes impassable.
As the sublime sinks in, we pray to God that it never changes.
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.
The overlook for Butler Wash Ruins did not disappoint. These little oases are amazing. Sometimes water below or farmable tracts above. But always sheltered from the weather.
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.
Sadly, this goldfish didn’t survive the dry season in the wash.
I was curious as to the species and just how in the world it got this far upstream!
One of the many mysteries of Bears Ears.
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.
Climbing out of the canyon.My new sunscreen, Canyon Dust. 100% Natural. SPF500.
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.
Sunrise.The more rocks the better!
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.
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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!
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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
And while we sleep, the Earth just spins and spins…
Tomorrow we are back at work! After loading up the gear, Apple Maps did an interesting thing…
“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.
I wonder why they call it Bluff?
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.
Can you see it? Dead center in the picture.
A nice way to stretch the legs and we found small storage ruins tucked up under the sandstone cap rock. Patricia even spied some pottery sherds in the washes below.
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.
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…
Where the land has not been “cow burned” with overgrazing, biological soil crusts develop. A symbiotic combination of algae, cyanobacteria, and fungi. They take decades to develop and are easily trampled.
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.
Moving up the canyon, we reach a route decision point and I say “Well, I guess we’ll go up.”
Patricia laughed. She knew a mile back we were going to the top, if possible. She’d seen the high point and had already committed herself to the possibility. Why would we not?
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.
Turning off of “Road G,” we wandered around a couple of buildings before arriving at an interesting and relaxed wine tasting venue. The ostensible owner, Tovy, waddled up and promptly sat on my feet.
He knew which side of the charcuterie board his cheese was situated on!
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.
Still keen for pizza we stopped at Comb Ridge Restaurant – for the third time. A lovely little place with outdoor seating under a cottonwood and an outdoor kitchen. We were even directed to the table under the one chandelier, perfect for an anniversary!
The hand-tossed funky chicken included shredded chicken, buffalo sauce, and…pickles?
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.
The “cedar” trees on Cedar Mesa are actually a type of juniper. Similar to our red cedar back home. This one had unloaded an incredible number of berries. They completely blanketed the ground with purple.
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?
Along the ledge on either side of the dwelling are other storage buildings. You can see on in this video pan in the center at around 14 seconds. It’s tucked under the bluff just to the right of the boulders. I’ve centered the picture on it.
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.
