Annual November Cedar Mesa Trip 2009

Saturday, November 21, 2009 | The Citadel

This past weekend Amanda and I headed south for our annual November Cedar Mesa weekend trip. We left right after work on Friday and made our way to Blanding where we had some hotel reservations for the weekend (we're not into cold weather camping).

Saturday morning we headed to our first destination of the weekend: The Citadel. I have wanted to check out these ruins for a while, and am glad we finally did. This was a fun hike with some minor scrambling required to reach the ruins.

After taking the short spur trail from the Cigarette Springs Road, we reached the rim of Road Canyon.

View over Road Canyon


After hiking along the rim of Road Canyon for about a mile and a half, we soon got our first view of the peninsula that the ruins are located on.





From this point we had to make our way down some steeper slickrock to reach the peninsula.

Amanda headed down




About to make our way across

Soon we reached the ruins

After checking out the ruins and relaxing for a while, we started on our way back to the Jeep.



Climbing back down








Some water filled potholes along the rim of Road Canyon



We soon reached the Jeep again and made our way to our next destination....stay tuned for that.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

South Comb Wash | River House Ruins

After our fun hike to <a href="http://www.myxj.net/blog/2231" target="_blank">The Citadel</a>, Amanda and i headed back out Cigarette Springs Road, took a left on UT 261 and made our way down the Moki Dugway. We made a quick stop at Goosenecks State Park since we were in the area.





Then we made our way back towards Bluff. Before heading through Comb Ridge, I decided to take a right onto South Comb Wash Road. I have driven the sections of Comb Wash north of US 163 before, but I had never headed south towards the San Juan River before, and I wanted to see if there was anything cool along this route.

As I suspected, when I got near the San Juan River I came across some of the markers indicating this was part of the Hole in the Rock route.



I followed the markers down a short spur until I reached San Juan Hill, where the road ended anyways.





After heading back to the main road I passed by the remains of a trading post on The Rincone

Just a little further up the road we came upon a large alcove that contained the River House Ruins. We spent some time checking out these ruins.







Some petroglyphs




Above the ruins in this photo, you can see a large snake painted on the back of the alcove. Another name for these ruins are the Snake House Ruins.

While we were checking out these ruins, we chatted up a Bluff local who was here at the same time and he told us about an interesting granary and some more petroglyphs along the ledge we were on a few hundred feet away, so we went to check them out before leaving.

Some of the petroglyphs


This definitely was an interesting granary....built around a fallen piece of rock that had naturally created a semi-enclosed area


The entrance was hidden behind the fallen rock


After heading back to the highway, we continued on towards Bluff, but made one more stop at the Sand Island Petroglyphs.









We finally reached Bluff just before sunset and then headed north to Blanding to end our day at the hotel after grabbing some dinner.

Stay tuned for Sunday....

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Cedar Mesa | House on Fire

Sunday morning we left Blanding and headed towards Cedar Mesa again. Our destination this morning was South Mule Canyon where we looked forward to hiking to the famous House on Fire ruins. We spent about an hour exploring the ruins and taking some photos. Here's a few of the photos...

















Still more to come from Sunday...

very fun to see the old ruins!