IntrepidXJ's Adventure Blog

Sunday, November 22, 2009

After making our way back to the highway from Arch Canyon Rim we crossed and headed back to Mule Canyon….this time on the other side of the highway. After a short half mile drive down a 4×4 road and a quick 100 yard hike down a rocky wash, we reached the Seven Towers (also known as the Cave Towers and Mule Canyon Towers).

Located here on both sides are the ruins of seven circular towers that once stood at the head of this canyon. A few still have some walls standing, but most are reduced to piles of rubble. I also spotted some ruins in an alcove located below in Mule Canyon.

If you look closely in the following picture, you can see some tower ruins on the other side of the canyon.

Looking across the canyon at the biggest remaining tower

After checking out these ruins, we headed back to the highway and made our way back home. It was another great weekend in Southern Utah!

Sunday, November 22, 2009

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 were hoping to be there at a good time of the day for lighting, and I think we nailed the timing pretty good. 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…

Saturday, November 21, 2009

After our fun hike to The Citadel, 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

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Saturday, November 21, 2009

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

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