We awoke to a frosty morning at 6000ft elevation and once organized, set off for a short hike down the rim trail towards a neat isthmus and island of rock called the The Citadel. I carried ropes and harnesses to give us the possibility of rappelling off of the Citadel and hiking back up the canyon to make a more interesting loop hike and to take in some more ruins. However our first opportunity to peer down to the canyon bottom revealed a near-continuous chain of pools from the recent rains- at best it would be slow going, at worst it would be wet and cold. We quickly decided against the adventure option for a comparatively mellow 4 mile out-and-back trail hike. Along the rim we got excellent panoramic views over the juniper forest of Cedar Mesa to distant snowy features like the Abajo Mountains 36 miles to the north, Carrizo Mountains 55 miles to the southeast, Comb Ridge 10 miles to the east, and the San Juan Mountains over 120 miles to the east. The level trail made for excellent walking through fields of textured cryptobiotic soil and patches of slickrock with pockmarks filled with water.
When we finally reached the end of the rim and could see the narrow band of rocks stretching out to The Citadel, I got a nice view that confirmed my lidar scouting of a rappel and downclimb route would have worked had we chosen to try it. We followed cairns down through cliff bands and zigzagged down moderate angled slickrock to the flat isthmus connector down to 30ft in width with drops of hundreds of feet on either side. We worked our way across to the resistant sandstone capstone island, and climbed up to its base where the south facing side held the very tidy six-room cliff dwelling of Citadel Ruin. It was every bit as impressive as I remembered and still highlighted the mystery of this minimally accessible, highly defensible, fortress-like ruin. What interesting lives the people that lived here must have led.
Though this area feels thoroughly remote and flying a drone probably should not be allowed, I took advantage of the legality (a wilderness study area in the BLM administered Bears Ears NM) to capture a few interesting airborne shots of the ruins, Citadel, and Road Canyon in the immediate vicinity.
After enjoying the flight and a snack next to the ruins we walked back to the car and journeyed back out to the highway.
We took a brief detour with Heather dropping me off at the Natural Bridges NM boundary to walk a half a mile and carry out a drone scouting flight over the White Canyon headwaters for a hopefully future hike while she discarded our wagbags. It turned out this was the first time Heather had driven the stretch of road between Natural Bridges and Hanksville so it was fun to see her reactions crossings the great terrain around the Colorado River, Dirty Devil, and dramatic views of the Henry Mountains. The rest of the day is continued in the following post for the Hanksville area where we spent the next two days.
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