Four Corners Region
Four Corners Region
November 11, 12, 13, & 14
2021
This adventure was A hidden gem Tiring Steep Amazing Incredible
After work, my brother and I drove down to our accommodations at an Airbnb in Blanding. We were planning on spending a few days in the Four Corners area of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona for some exploration. Despite many of our destinations being hours away, we decided to use our Blanding spot as a home base.
My girlfriend, Annie, was coming from St. George and was planning on meeting us tonight. As she was driving she got to Page, Arizona and got very tired. She got a hotel for the night and told us she would meet up with us tomorrow morning. My brother and I didn’t get to our Airbnb until about 11 pm and we went straight to bed.
This morning we were waiting for Annie to arrive so we had about 3 hours of free time. We decided to spend some time at the Edge of the Cedars State Park and see the museum. Many of the exhibits show fascinating examples of pottery, tools, arrows, and even clothing that the ancient peoples of the greater Cedar Mesa area had. I loved seeing all the pottery. We were surprised that some of the exhibits were less than a few years old! A giant pot was apparently discovered underneath a ledge and had been preserved for the last 700-800 years! The person who found it knew the right thing to do was to alert the BLM of their discovery. The BLM preserved the pot and made a really nice display case for it at the museum.
We spent about an hour at the museum even going outside to check out the ruins and kiva. This is a great museum! I highly encourage you to make a stop if you can!
My brother and I then drove down the street to check out the 5 Kivas. We took the short yet steep hike to the cave where the kivas were located. We enjoyed seeing the ruins and stopped to see the arch just to the north of here.
Eventually Annie sent us a text saying she was in Bluff (about a half-hour away) and so we went back to town to wait for her.
Annie got to town and we had a small lunch before heading out for the day! Annie brought her newly acquired ATV and we were ready to try it out on this trip. We drove the several hours to where we needed to park the truck so we could unload the ATV. We got all our gear loaded on the ATV and we were off!
The ATV is pretty big and fit the three of us comfortably. It struggled a bit, but we were mostly driving on a flat and graded road, so it did good. We got to as far as we could go and hid the ATV and then we began our hike.
The hike starts off at a narrow canyon entrance and then opens up into a wide drainage. We came to the first set of ruins, but kept going up to ones that I haven’t seen before. The hike was steep and we kept seeing what we thought was bear scat.
As we got closer to the ruins, my brother thought he could see some granaries on the cliffs ahead of us. I took a picture with my camera and zoomed in and found that they were indeed granaries! We eventually flew my drone so we could see them better – they looked really neat! Nothing inside of them though.
After a few more minutes of hiking we got to the ruins. There were a bunch on this ledge and a larger structure with a wooden roof above from these. We found very large pieces of pottery too. It was fun admiring the pottery and leaving it where we found it. It’s illegal to take any artifacts or relics. We loved re-discovering the pottery and leaving it for the next hikers.
I knew there were more ruins above these and across the mesa. We hiked up a steep part until the top and continued north to our next stop.
We found a grotto where a small spring was located and discovered a natural bridge over the creek!
Another 1/2 mile and we found our last set of ruins for the day. I was excited about these because I knew that this one still had its roof! I’ve never seen ruins with the originally mud/wood roof on top. I loved seeing the detail in the construction of the structure. I imagine this was a dwelling of some kind. The structure was collapsed yet the roof was still in decent condition for being 700-1,000 years old.
These places are special to me. I love envisioning ancient people living here and working to build a community. I always treat these places with respect and care. We were watching our step and even careful to not step on the cryptobiotic soil.
It was getting dark and so we had to start planning our route back to the ATV. We were already two canyons north of where we originally started, so we debated for a minute if we go back the same way we came or do we go down this new canyon. The drone came in handy again as we scouted a potential route down this canyon. The route seemed doable. We didn’t have much of a choice at this point since the sun was already set.
We began our descent down. We got to the bottom of the canyon and enjoyed a relatively easy hike out the canyon. Once out the canyon we had another 2 miles to our ATV. We followed some dry washes and eventually found it. But, as we got closer, my brother thought he saw a wet spot underneath the ATV. We got closer and could smell gas! Upon further inspection, we found that there was a fuel leak and it was dripping fast.
We looked in the tank and found that there was still 3/4 tank of gas left. This was odd because the fast dripping suggested that there shouldn’t be any fuel left at this point. We had been gone for five hours and the fuel was only 3/4 empty? It didn’t make sense.
Troubleshooting the leak didn’t get us anywhere. It was getting cold and dark and we still had about 3.5 mile hike back to the truck. We weren’t excited about this since we had already hiked many miles and our legs were exhausted.
When we tried starting the ATV, it would turn, but wouldn’t start. I noticed a “check engine” light on too. After trying starting it a few more times we decided to hike back to the truck and then come back early the next day to retrieve the ATV.
It was cold and dark, yet we had a nice bright moon to light our way to the truck. It was very disappointing to not have that ATV, but it ended up being a nice walk back.
We drove a few hours back to Blanding and ate at a really good diner. There didn’t seem to be anyone around town on a Friday night! We asked where everyone was and the cashier said that the Blanding football team was at state and everyone was in Ogden watching the games.
What a crazy day.
In the morning we were set on getting that ATV on our truck. We stopped at the local Dollar General or whatever it’s called and bought some tools to help us. We then drove back the several hours drive to get the ATV. The ATV was still there, thankfully. The area we were exploring receives very little visitors. In fact, I have never seen anyone on any of my trips in this area. It helps that this is far away from Comb Ridge and Blanding, so most visitors don’t know about it.
Anyway, when we got to the ATV we took off the seat and saw that a small hose was disconnected. We couldn’t figure out where it went! It smelt like gas and seemed like it came from the carburetor, but we didn’t want to put it somewhere and have the engine explode or get ruined. Either way, we put it in neutral and pushed it back on the truck. It took about an hour of hard work, but we finally did it.
Our next destination was Comb Ridge. I scouted out some ruins a while ago and thought it was best to use the drone to scout for them before hiking. The drone proved there were ruins! They seemed more like hunting blinds. A hunting blind is a natural wall or fence to hide a hunter. An animal will walk by and the hunter will shoot an arrow or throw a spear at it. These are really neat to see!
Comb Ridge is amazing!
The last adventure of the day was to drive about 3 more hours to our next destination: the Moki Steps! These incredible steps were carved by ancient peoples around 700-1000 years ago. They were used to make it easier to climb up and down the mesas and we planned to get as close as we could to them.
After about an hour of hiking, we finally got to the top of the Moki Steps. There were so many steps it seemed like this was a popular area to use. I love these things. The steps, to me, tell a story. They tell a story about the Ancestral Pueblo peoples creating these steps to make their journeys across the landscapes easier.
We hatched a plan to descend the steps! We all went down them and then Brett ascended back up to go to the truck and come pick Annie and I up. Going down the steps was probably one of the top ten things I have done in my life. It was exciting and thrilling and incredible to literally be walking in the same steps people used 1000 years ago! I will never forget this!
Brett picked us up and we drove the 3 hours back to Blanding for dinner. We ate at the steakhouse and then went to bed!
In the morning Annie went back to St. George and Brett and I drove up to Moab for a little detour. He wanted to show me a hidden slot canyon he found a while ago and I was excited to see it!
The canyon is short, but worth it! We decided to hike through it since the water level was low and I wanted to see the waterfalls and slot canyon!
After the canyon, we drove back home!
I flew my drone over Comb Ridge
