Cedar Mesa & Bluff
Saturday & Sunday, April 21-22, 2012
I was originally supposed to go camping this weekend with Amanda, but at the last minute she was unable to go with me, so I had to figure out something else to do. I sent an email to Marty to see if he was free on the weekend for some hiking on Cedar Mesa, but I figured he already had plans and I would be on my own. To my surprise, he was free and willing to join me. At first he thought he would only be joining me on Saturday, but he ended up camping overnight and exploring with me the whole weekend.
We met up in Blanding at the usual gas station so that we could top off our fuel tanks before driving through Comb Ridge and up onto Cedar Mesa. We made a quick stop at the Kane Gulch Ranger Station so that I could finally grab my Annual Hiking Permit for the year, and then continued on to the Owl Creek Canyon trailhead. I was surprised to see so many vehicles parked here. I guess I am used to hiking the lesser travelled canyons in Cedar Mesa, because I wasn’t expecting the parking area to be packed. Normally I would probably turn around and find somewhere else to go, but I sucked it up and continued on down into Owl Canyon for a short hike.
We stopped and visited the well-preserved set of ruins just in the large alcove along the trail. There were some very interesting and unique ruins here.
Owl Creek Alcove by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
There were also some pictographs painted on the ceiling of the alcove.
Paintings by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
Small Room by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr