Moon House & Upper Johns Canyon | Day 6
Day 6: Moon House & Upper Johns Canyon
Thursday, April 14, 2011
After another very windy and cold night, Jared and I had some breakfast and headed over to the Kane Gulch Ranger station again. We wanted to make this an easy day since we had done a bunch of hiking all week, so we decided to go check out the Moon House Ruins. We had attempted this hike a few years ago (before the permit system was started) but we were unable to find the way down and across McLoyd Canyon to the ruins, so we wanted to finally reach the ruins this time. We arrived at the ranger station at 8:00am and quickly obtained our permit. Then we were soon on our way down the Snow Flat Road to the trailhead.
This time we did end up reaching Moon House Ruins and spent about 2.5 hours exploring the area. We were lucky and had the place all to ourselves. On our way back across the canyon to the Jeep we did eventually meet two other groups of three who were hiking in to the ruins. I guess we got there at a good time 🙂
The outer wall of the main Moon House ruins.
What looks like a snake pictograph located above the ruins.
A view from behind the outer wall. A very cool and unique place.
The very unique stripe painted on an interior wall that the Moon House Ruins is known for.
A closer look at the paint on the interior wall.
Here’s a closer look at the snake-like pictograph from inside the outer wall.
Three structures next to the main Moon House ruins.
Many old structures make up the Moon House complex.
An interesting pattern and smoke-stained ceiling.
A small round structure found a little ways down canyon from the Moon House Ruins, but on the same ledge.
I just love seeing the fingerprints of the builders still in the mortar. This section has a whole bunch of them if you look closely.
This long rectangular ruin was below a ceiling with a very cool pattern that was reflecting the light nicely with an orange glow. The next two photos are of the same area, just different perspectives/compositions.
After heading up the canyon a little ways we came across a good sized kiva that still has some of the plaster on the interior.
A T-shaped door in the kiva.
Just beyond the kiva we climbed up to an alcove that had a few pictographs including this anthropomorphic figure.
View inside McLoyd Canyon as we hike back across to my Jeep.
After we spent a while exploring the area we hiked back across the canyon to the Jeep and had some lunch while we decided where to go next. We decided to check out Upper Johns Canyon where we would search for some more ruins. It looked like this would be an easy hike, but apparently Jared and I have a hard time sticking to our plan for an ‘easy day.’ When we were done searching Upper Johns Canyon we had hiked a few miles more than we had planned and climbed from the bottom to the top of the canyon a few more times than we had wanted to. We were pretty tired by the time we got back to the Jeep again!
A few petroglyphs we found while exploring the first set of ruins we visited.
We found a lot of pot shards throughout the week, but this is the only one I took a photo of. There were a whole bunch located near the ruins in this canyon….some pretty good sized, too.
On our way to the ‘Big Ruins’ we passed these pictographs.
There’s a door stone in place on this structure.
These are the ‘Big Ruins’ located high up on the canyon wall. It was a little tricky finding the way up to them.
We found a few faint handprints near another set of ruins that we passed as we made our way back to the Jeep.
This small granary is build on an overhang.
The door stone on this one is broken and missing a piece.
After our hike we headed over to nearby Muley Point so that I could call Amanda again. When I was done with my call we stopped to search for a nearby hill-top ruin. There was really no visible ruin to speak of (just a mound of dirt)….but the area surrounding the mound was littered with pot shards everywhere.
Next it was back to our camp on Coyote Flat for dinner and a campfire to keep warm. The wind was supposed to die down that evening, but it was also supposed to be a very cold night.
Day 7 to be continued…