Bullet Canyon Nov 23

Bullet Canyon is one of the tributaries of Grand Gulch I did not have time to explore on a previous San Juan River packraft and Grand Gulch backpack trip Jeff and I did a few years ago. Most of the excellent ruins in the canyon are within the bottom 2.5 miles of the confluence but we just did not have the time to fit in such a big detour. This seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to day hike down to check out the ruins while Heather and the kids hiked the more accessible Moonhouse Ruins nearby. They dropped me off at the trailhead at 10am and set a 2:30pm pickup time. A short rim walk led to a break in the cliff down into the shallow canyon. There was plenty of water in pools and puddles on the canyon floor, always in ice form. In contrast to previous days, cloud cover was complete with a chance on rain I was surprised at the excellent quality of the unmaintained trail and soon realized that travel would be much better than typical sections in nearby Grand Gulch. After about a mile and a half, a series of bedrock dryfalls caused the canyon to rapidly deepen.

I continued at a good pace following the many bench trails that helped smooth out the sinuosity of the streambed. Most of the canyon stayed fairly narrow but at one point the canyon opened up into a meadowy park. It was easy to imagine this being an ancestral hangout spot, whether hunting elk or farming corn.

After a long straightaway, a right bend in the canyon turned me to stare towards a large stately alcove, the most obvious place for a settlement in the entire canyon up to this point and the location of Perfect Kiva. I clambered up the slickrock to gain the ledge and took my time exploring the many ruins, and more subtle features like multi-colored pictographs, metate grinding rocks, scratching rocks, pottery shards, and mini corn cobs. There was so much to see but I kept getting drawn back to the well preserved home with the T-shaped doorway and the ominous ladder into the darkness of the Perfect Kiva. I stepped down the modern facsimile of an ancient ladder to peer inside without disturbing the ground inside. The view up was nearly as dramatic as the view downward. This would have been a pretty neat place to live overall and must have been the envy of many others in the region.

After exploring the entirety of the alcove and a quick snack, I took a guess that I could walk out the ledge around the corner to Jailhouse Ruin, which proved true. This ruin was quite the contrast to the stately and well organized alcove of Perfect Kiva. Here very shallow alcoves were walled over to create a multi-level ruin. The upper level seems inaccessible in its current form but gives the place a fortress-like feel with what looks to be a defensive wall and three prominent pictographs seeming to ward off intruders. The low level consists of some complex granaries built into an alcove and the remains of what might have been a house in the front. The stick-and-adobe work here is particularly well preserved. The ruin gets its name from a small window crossed with sticks; since this is in the wall of a granary I think it is probably likely that this window was unintentional and is instead a small collapse of the wall. After some more pictures it was time to head back up the canyon.

Jailhouse Ruin at center right

The sky continued to darken and cold rain drops began to be more prevalent. The temperature never got above 40F all day and despite my fast pace I maintained a thermal top throughout. I passed a couple groups on the way back up and generally made good time knowing where all the best trails were this time. Most of the way back up the canyon I took a chance at a place I thought I might be able to climb out to see the cliff edge lookout tower ruin. I surmounted a couple very frictiony and exposed slickrock slab moves and then had one last cliff band to get through to gain the rim. After a bit of a traverse I spotted a sideway sloping ramp of rock to a large juniper halfway up the cliff. I managed to climb the juniper to gain the ridge, a fun little route. Walking the rim I eventually came to the lookout tower ruin. Surprisingly it was not actually on the edge of the cliff but completely inaccessible on a vertical walled boulder that detached. A curious dry-stacked ruin, it was hard to imagine its purpose. I arrived right on schedule back at the trailhead, satisfied at seeing a couple more classic Cedar Mesa ruins. There really is so much to explore in this region with fairly remarkable archaeological preservation. 

After we had the simple but long matter of driving back over the next day and a half. The scenery had a moody tinge to it, particularly Monument Valley, with the dark skies covering the land. All in all it was a great if short little getaway.

Natural Bridges Nov 22

From Page we drove on through the Navajo Nation, past Hopi Buttes and Monument Valley, over the Green River, up the engineering feat that is the Moki Dugway, and across Cedar Mesa to a new stop for me, Natural Bridges National Monument. It is a small national monument covering a part of the canyon network ultimately draining into the Black Hole of White Canyon. It's name and designation come from an unusual density of natural bridges (i.e. three) but as I found out is also notable for its ruins. 

Agathla Peak

After getting the lay of the land and finding a choice spot at the campground, Heather drove the start of the park loop to drop me off at the Sipapu Bridge trailhead for my hike past three natural bridges through the canyon network. The view from the trailhead across the White Canyon headwaters was fairly spectacular. I said my goodbyes at 2pm and set a 4:30p pickup at the other end of the park.

Trailhead view looking into White Canyon

The trail down through the Cedar Mesa Sandstone was more interesting than I would have guessed with cut steps into slick rock and two bolted ladders to climb down. In only about ten minutes I was on the canyon floor starring up at Sipapu Bridge (frontispiece) overhead. All three natural bridges are the result of canyon meanders being breached. After a few photos I continued downcanyon. I did not know what to expect for a trail (it could have been miles of obnoxious basketball-sized boulder hopping), but soon recognized that most sediment benches had an excellent and not too sandy trail to follow back and forth across and down the drainage. I brought plenty of extra layers just in case but with the constant movement found it pleasant enough to hike in just a shirt. I knew there was a ruin of some description on canyon right after the Deer Canyon confluence and climbed up to see the cluster of structures known as Horse Collar Ruins. These were pretty interesting with several multi-room structures including sleeping rooms and a particularly unique adobe double granary structure with a deep "tub" between the two, also apparently for storage.

Horse Collar Ruins (and below)

I continued on. Unsurprisingly with the ruins and rocks the hike reminded me a lot of a long multi-day hike along the length of Grand Gulch from a Thanksgiving years before. Patches of sun ensured that the hike was not completely freezing like that incredibly cold hike. The canyon was also not quite as sinuous, which meant more forward progress. At one spot a particularly nice canyon wall loomed on the left. Soon after I turned the corner to see the tell-tale window of Kachina Bridge. Kachina Bridge was certainly the chunkiest of the three bridges, and also clearly younger than Sipapu with its limited downcutting since abandoning its meander. This bridge occurs right at a major confluence leading to some extra confusion and head scratching on my part.

Kachina Bridge (and below)

Past Kachina Bridge trail signs pointed upward onto a cliff bench but I was thinking this was the trail heading up to the loop road and so I stubbornly followed the streambed. I very soon came to the base of a dryfall with a slot canyon partially cut into it and a deep pool at the base. I would have to turn back to regain the trail but was confused at this feature I thought was a downstream opposing dryfall. It took me several minutes of total confusion but I eventually recognized I was now heading upstream up a tributary, rather than downstream as I naively thought. That confusion out of the way, I continued hiking. 

A few canyon bends further I checked my map to realize I passed a "ruin view" placemark. I was curious enough to drop my backpack and backtrack along the canyon. Sure enough in the vicinity of the placemark I could see a very well preserved ruin high up on a ledge on canyon left. Looking around the way up was not obvious at all but I decided to invest about a half hour trying to see if there was a reasonable approach. After a few deadends, I ultimately figured out the obscure approach zigzagging upward and around from one ledge to the next until I was finally at the right elevation. I traversed back around the corner and followed the narrow ledge to a rather stately alcove and the ruin that an ammo can register would tell me was known as Perfect Granary. It indeed was a remarkably well-preserved granary with not a rock or stick out of place. I was rather thrilled to stumble upon this unlisted ruin; the gambled effort paid off.

Perfect Granary (interior below)

Back down to my backpack I now had to speed up to get to the trailhead pickup on time. Right as the trail exits the canyon floor to traverse a ledge I ran into Heather and the kids, great timing. Heather and David wanted to walk a bit more so Claire and I moseyed onward, with snack stops, mud stops, and ice play stops. We soon came to Owachomo Bridge, arguably the thinnest and most picturesque. A few quick photos and we continued up to the trailhead with Heather and David not far behind. I was happy to be able to get in my 6.5 mile/2.5 hour jaunt but could tell there was much more to see in the area. I also enjoyed the solitude of not seeing anyone else until the end of the hike.

Owachomo Bridge

We had a nice evening in the campground with a warm fire and aluminum foil wrapped Thanksgiving dinner cooking on the fire. It would be another cold night but thankfully no wind.

White Pocket Nov 21

 

Heather and I had been interested in checking out White Pocket since our trip to Coyote Buttes South ignited our interest in exploring all of the most swirly, unusual patches of Arizona Strip slickrock. Though free from permits like a couple of the other areas, it was guarded by the reputation for deep sandy access roads. We did some more research (Heather in particular) and decided that buddying up with another vehicle and having shovels, sand planks, and an air compressor would be enough to give us (i.e. Heather's Subaru Forester) a good chance at success. The cold off-season temperatures would likely only help firm up the sand too. We drove with kids slowly across California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Arizona, Utah, and then to the Arizona-Utah boundary. Happily we found the first-come, first-served Stateline Campground to be only half full and camped 50ft into Arizona.

After a cold night we awoke to find that Keith, Kari, and Zora had arrived sometime in the night. Things were painfully cold until the first sunlight finally crested the western edge of the Vermilion Plateau and everyone finally start to thaw into action. I led the caravan into White Pocket. The route in was better marked than expected. The sand yes was deep and loose in a few places but thankfully there were hard patches on slickrock to intermittently break up the driving and provide psychological islands in the sea of sand. Thankfully the AWD cars did just fine with our experienced driving and we made it to White Pocket in less than an hour's drive.

We started off into the slickrock together but I almost immediately was mesmerized by trying to get to the top of one of the more prominent formations and branched off. Once on top the drone called me to fly over the bizarrely swirling landscape. The region was in a BLM administered national monument, which meant I could fly to heart's content. I did my best to avoid the couple other groups but I suspect the overhead buzzing was still probably annoying. The overhead vantage really added interest to a lot of the strange and completely unique erosional patterns.

After burning through a couple batteries I hiked over to join the others for a mid-morning snack and some more on the ground exploring. We walked around the main formations for about a mile, my camera at the ready nearly every step. 

We ended our loop hike on the white brain rocks before heading back to the car. The drive out had a lot more oncoming traffic which complicated the soft sand driving (as well as the warming day) and there were much more sections where I "boated" our way through the sand. Once at House Rock Rd we parted with Keith who was headed north, while we headed south. We stopped briefly at the Cliff Dweller hoodoos and again at the Marble Canyon Bridge, then it was on to Page for a warm motel break from the cold camping.