Since Annie has not spent much time in Moab, I figured it would be good to start with some classic Moab adventures: Delicate Arch, Devils Garden, seeing Highway 279 along the Colorado River, and of course some petroglyphs.  We LOVE petroglyphs! I recently purchased a drone to aid in what I call “lazy hiking”.  Lazy Hiking just means using the drone to scout out areas for hiking or exploring or whatever without any effort or energy given.  I was looking forward to doing much lazy hiking this weekend too! 

Anyway, we met up Friday night, had dinner, and talked about our plans for the next few days.  I showed her a satellite photo of this strange white domed circle that I found near Moab.  From satellite photos we couldn’t really tell what it was and it looked like it had strange markings on it.  We rightfully assumed it was probably a piece of an alien craft (joking). With how this last summer went, I was expecting people to be everywhere.  I already set myself up for traffic and tons of people crawling all over, but was extremely surprised to find empty restaurants and hotels.

Today we spent the morning going along Highway 279 (Potash Road area).  We saw the Bear Panel Petroglyph that is right on the side of the road, but easily missed by some. We continued far down the road to a point where we could get the drone within close enough distance to the ‘alien artifact’.  We stopped a few times along the way to see the ice floating down the Colorado River – it was beautiful!

Cell service was spotty and so I couldn’t pull up the GPS coordinate for where the weird white circle thing was located, so we basically guessed where it was.  We pulled out the drone and went straight up a few hundred feet.  After flying around for a bit we saw it.

In the distance was the strange white circle and connectivity from the drone controller to the drone was going in and out.  I tried to get as close as I could and then I realized that the drone camera had a 2x zoom on it.  I used it to get a better picture and we were both shocked by what we saw! 

The white circle had very clear distinct markings on it and we couldn’t figure out why in the world this would be there! I wasn’t 100% set on hiking up there since it was high on the mesa above steep cliffs, but Annie was now more curious than ever!  We drove around a bit to try and find a better and safer trailhead to begin our hike to it and found something that would eventually take over 4.6 miles roundtrip!  This seemed to be the best route, but who knows! 

There is no set trail, but there were a few game trails that helped us.  Ultimately, we were left to unavoidably hike through brush and steep terrain.  Luckily, there were plenty of dry washes to make the hiking a little easier too. 

About a mile into the hike we looked up one of the drainages and thought we saw an arch in the distance!  We immediately hiked straight to it and found that it was indeed an arch!  We also discovered that there was an ancient granary underneath it!  What a huge surprise for us!  It was so much fun to see this unexpected arch and granary that we spent the next little while exploring around for any petroglyphs or other ruins.

The granary was dug out of the ground and lined with flat sandstone slabs that were then bound together by some type of mortar.  It was still in beautiful condition considering it’s probably 800-1000 years old!  I found a bird egg shell too.  Please do not touch or take any artifact or relics from this site 🙂  

We used the drone to scout out other alcoves, but didn’t find anything. We ate some snacks and continued to the other side of the canyon.  This side had plenty of snow since it was north facing.  We found a good route and hiked higher up to where it was flat. We saw a large spire that appeared to have some rock climbing anchors on top of it!  It didn’t seem to have many good hand and foot-holds on it, but what do I know, I’m not a climber!

We eventually hiked around to nearly the top of the mesa and then we saw it again: the secret sacred precious alien artifact! We still didn’t see any signs of a trail, even though it was clearly man-made.  So maybe this was flown in by helicopter? 

We got right up to it and discovered it was made out of metal!  We tapped on it and it sounded like it was covering some type of hole.  At first try, you could almost peer in the sides, but it was of course dark on the inside and couldn’t see anything.

After walking around it and trying to figure out what it was we discovered it had a lip on the edge of the domed part.  We then found a small hole where we could see inside: it was full of water! Near the domed structure we saw a pipe with a rock on top of it.  We looked inside and saw some type of wire mesh.  We saw a large rock pile down from this and opened up the top of it.  There was some type of plumbing and some water in it.  We then disappointedly realized that this was a bubbler and not some secret alien relic or another art project like the Utah Monolith.

The plumbing seemed to be exactly like the plumbing in your common household toilet.  The large white storage container would collect snow and rain water and then there were pipes that would go to a float ball and float tube.  Once the water reached a certain level, the device would then allow water to trickle through and end up on a manmade rock.  The water would sit on top of this rock and big horn sheep (and other animals) would have no idea that this water came from a desert toilet device and they would drink to their heart’s content.  Pretty cool! 

This would be a reliable source of water.  I have seen big horn sheep in this area, and this would be a good spot out of the way from cars and people. I don’t know why you would want to hike out here, but if you do, please be respectful and do not deface or destroy this resource.

We hiked back the same way and found another pipe.  But this one was just a pipe that was drilled into a boulder.  Not sure what this one was for and we didn’t have time to find out. After this adventure we were very tired.  We ended up eating at the Moab Brewery and ended the day!

Annie left back to St. George early this morning and I wanted to spend some time in Comb Ridge before heading back to Northern Utah.  It took about 1 hr and 45 min to drive to Lower Mule Canyon where I planned to see some more ruins. Lower Mule Canyon is full of ruins and some petroglyphs.  Many of the ruins are located within a short walk of where you park.  This is a very quiet area.  My first impression: it’s kind of creepy.

When I was done taking pictures I was trying to find a way down to the trail below and saw two other hikers.  They said that they heard there were more ruins up the canyon, but they never found any more.  I was pretty sure there were more ruins, but I wasn’t completely sure.  But maybe they weren’t actually ruins? The trail eventually split several times and I wasn’t sure which trail to take, so I just went in a general direction to where I thought the other ruins were located. 

After hiking through thick brush and tall cottonwood trees I thought I saw a ruin hidden in a crevice (these weren’t the ruins I saw on).  I walked over there and saw a blackened cave with a couple of ruins!  The cave was located high up and I didn’t feel safe hiking up to it since I was alone, but I stood on a ledge to get some pictures of the inside.  Please be respectful and do not climb on the ruins or take anything from these sensitive sites.  Just take pictures and leave everything as you found it.

I hiked farther up the canyon until I came to a flat spot. I pulled out the drone and flew it up to where I thought more ruins would be located.  I found several small structures, most likely granaries, hundreds of feet above where I was.  It is possible to hike up to them, but I didn’t want to use all that energy when the drone was doing a great job already!

I packed up and went back to the first ruins at Lower Mule Canyon.  I thought it would be really cool to get some close up shots of the ruins with the drone so I pulled it out and started flying around.  I was doing a pan-out shot when my drone suddenly lost all connectivity.  It was like it was shot out of the sky or just lost power or something. 

I was walking fast to where the last signal from the drone was transmitted when I saw an old man come seemingly out of the bushes. He was holding some sumac branches and I asked him if he had heard my noisy drone flying around.  He said he had not seen or heard anything.  He told me he was looking for more branches so his wife could make a basket.  I asked him how big of a basket she was planning on making since he had already gathered a good amount.  He said it wasn’t too big.  He then said “happy hunting” and was on his way. 

I took a few more steps and turned around to see where the man went – he was already out of sight.  I thought it was strange because we were in a meadow area and I could have easily seen where he went, but he had already vanished.  I’m not implying he may have shot my drone down or anything, but the timing of all of this made it all the more interesting.  It was creepy because I never saw him come back the same way on the trail and when I got back to the parking lot there were no other cars, not even in the nearby campground…

I lost all hope and went back to my car.  Oh well. I’m still not sure what happened to the drone and wasn’t too happy that I lost about 30 gigabytes worth of videos and photos from our Moab trip. If anyone is hiking in Lower Mule Canyon and finds a DJI Mini 2 drone, you will be rewarded! 

On the way home I saw a small granary off the side of the road near Blanding.  I felt like it would be a good way end the trip on a positive note, so I stopped and got a picture of it.  I was literally out of my car for less than two minutes when a highway patrol car came up behind my mine.  I was already taking pictures of the granary when I saw them looking into my car.

I finished taking photos and rolled out of the bushes.  They said “Oh! You were looking at the ruin, eh?” And I said I was.  “We just wanted to make sure nothing else was going on,” they said.  I’m not sure what that meant and luckily I was carrying my DSLR or they may have thought I was up to no good. On the way home near Woodside, I got this photo of the sunset.