IntrepidXJ's Adventure Blog

After a good night’s sleep, we headed out early on Sunday morning to hike to the Lewis Lodge ruins. While we made it down the first ledge, we were unable to make it down to the ruins because of the very narrow and steep trail with an 800 foot drop-off on one side. The exposure was just too much for us. We did manage to get some photos of the ruins from the opposite side of the canyon, though.

Spot the ruins high up on the cliff.

A shot zoomed in further…

We were a bit disappointed that we couldn’t make it out to the ruins, but after hiking back to our Jeep’s we continued on down the trail a little ways to stop at Hotel Rock for some pictures and lunch.

I took a number of pictures at Hotel Rock…

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On Saturday morning we headed out on our annual Memorial Day weekend trip to the Comb Ridge and Cedar Mesa area in Southeastern Utah. As usual, we would be meeting up with our friend Jared for the weekend and heading out to find some ruins.

After the drive down to Comb Wash and setting up camp, we headed out to check out some ruins that Jared had spotted along Highway 95 not too far from camp. We parked off the highway and made our way to the rim of the small canyon where we quickly spotted the ruins. We had to hike down the rim of the canyon to reach the bottom so we could hike back up a little bit in order to reach them.

We then hiked up canyon a little further and found a few petroglyphs.

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Since our original plans for the weekend were to go rafting near Glenwood Springs on Sunday, I ended up heading to Davis Canyon on Saturday to do some hiking and exploring. Unfortunately, because of the wind, our rafting trip on Sunday never happened 🙁

After driving up Davis Canyon to the Canyonlands National Park boundary, I parked my Jeep and hiked in. My first destination would be the Five Faces Pictographs. These pictographs are in amazing condition.

All five faces.

Below the pictographs on two sandstone slabs were ten large depressions.

After leaving the Five Faces, I backtracked a little ways down the canyon to check out this small, but well-preserved granary.

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This last weekend Amanda and I headed south to Hovenweep National Monument and the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument. This is an area we have been close to many times before, but had not been to yet. I’m not sure why it took so long, but it was definitely well worth the visit, and I’m looking forward to heading back to explore more in the future!

After setting up camp at the Hovenweep campground, we started out by making our way over to the Holly Group of ruins a few miles away. Hovenweep is a bit different from other National Parks and Monuments as it is not one large area. Hovenweep is actually comprised of six separate villages spread over a twenty-mile expanse of mesa tops and canyons along the Utah-Colorado border.

Holly Tower and Holly House

Holly House

After visiting Holly, we backtracked to the hiking trail for both the Horseshoe and Hackberry ruins. After a nice half mile hike, we reached Horseshoe.

Round Tower perched on the canyon rim (Shiprock on the horizon).

Horseshoe House

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Thursday, April 8, 2010 | Day 1

Late last year I finally decided to put together a trip that has been on my to-do list for way too long. I needed to finish driving the Hole-in-the-Rock Expedition (San Juan Mission) Route by driving the Hole-in-the-Rock Trail. I had driven pretty much all of the other sections of the route that are drivable except for this one. This was planned as a three day trip so that we could take our time and also get in some hiking along the trail. My adventure started on Thursday, which was the day before we were supposed to meet at the trail. I wanted to take my time driving to the trail near Hall’s Crossing and also make a few stops along the way.

After stopping at Back of Beyond Books in Moab and filling up my gas tank in Blanding, I set off west on UT-95. Of course I had to stop at ‘Salvation Knoll’ since it was an important landmark to George Hobbs and the Hole-in-the-Rock Expedition.

From Salvation Knoll I made my way further west to my first trail of the trip. On my maps, I noticed there was a segment of the Hole-in-the-Rock trail that I had not driven that connected UT-95 and UT-276. After some research into the route, I found that it is still a valid route that is open to motorized travel, so I figured I would give it a try.

When I reached the turnoff from the highway, I was greeted with a well maintained county road. The sign even marked it as part of the Mormon Trail

After a mile or two of the easy pretty well maintained road, it got a little rougher and crossed some slickrock sections

Eventually I reached a large section of slickrock that dropped off into a small canyon. I didn’t immediately find a way down, so I parked the Jeep and hiked around for a while until I picked up the trail again. From this point on, the well maintained county road was left behind and the much rougher and narrower trail continued. It was hard to follow in many places and required that I hike ahead first, but there were enough signs along the way to reassure myself that I was on the right track.

Marker along the route indicating this was part of the Hole-in-the-Rock Expedition

Dropping down

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