I have been telling my good friend Kevin about Comb Ridge for quite a while.  I was telling Kevin about the secrets Comb Ridge holds such as ancient ruins, petroglyphs, and more.  He seemed more than interested and he wanted to join on this trip. 

The Comb Ridge area is mostly a dog friendly area and so Kevin brought his Wheaten Terrier, Maggie, too!  I picked up Kevin and we left Northern Utah around 2 pm.  We spent the rest of the day driving to our campsite in Comb Ridge.  We stopped in Moab to get some steaks and other things from the grocery store.  After the brief stop we continued to Blanding where we decided it would be best to get a pizza in town rather than set up camp and cook dinner when we would be arriving in camp around 8pm – we were already tired! 

We didn’t find much open in Blanding except for a small pizza place that was also a convenience store.  We then drove to our campsite and ate in the car since it was pretty cold and we didn’t have a fire going.  The pizza was pretty good!

Setting up camp went fast and I tried taking some night photos of the stars, but I was getting more tired from all that driving.  We kept hearing noises in the bushes and found about 10 or so deer walking through camp.  A couple times during the night Kevin and I both heard some deer sneezing close to my tent which freaked us out for a second!

We fell asleep at around 10:30 pm last night and I was surprised at how well I slept.   I only woke up a few times and didn’t wake up fully until about 7:30 am.  When the sun hit my tent, it started to get warm very fast and soon I was outside the tent enjoyed the 60 degree weather.

For breakfast we made the very complicated recipe for oatmeal yogurt parfaits.  Here is how we made them: 

Comb Ridge Oatmeal Parfait Recipe 

Cook 1 cup of oatmeal.  Add in the following toppings when oatmeal is cooked:

• strawberry vanilla granola (available at WinCo)
• dried cranberries
• dried strawberries
• dried raisins or blueberries
• honey Greek yogurt

Makes two servings. This is a very simple camping recipe that I enjoy at home too!

After breakfast it was time to look for my drone.  Our campsite was located about 1 mile from the Lower Mule Canyon Trailhead.  I was prepared this time too.  I bought another drone to help us scout out for the one I lost.  Plus, I coerced Maggie and Kevin into spending an hour to help me find my drone and was hoping Maggie could use her doggy nose to help find it somehow!  I had an idea on where it was, but soon we discovered the drone was probably gone forever.

After checking out the ruins in Lower Mule Canyon, we used the drone to fly around and scout in some of the higher areas.  It was clear that this would require many more hours and patience than any of us wanted to give.  Oh well!  While we were out exploring, we saw a military C-17 fly over us.  They must have got an incredible view of Comb Ridge!  There aren’t any Air Force bases near Comb Ridge, so it seemed out-of-place.

We came back to the campsite for lunch and it was nice to relax for a bit.  I played around with my satellite messenger device and was surprised at how well it works!  (We didn’t have cell service at our camp or most places we went.)  I’ll make a review later, but this was nice to have to be able to check-in with family while I was away.  

Our campground was very comfortable and it even had a few outhouse style toilets.  There was plenty of room to spread out away from the neighbors and have a relatively quiet campsite all to yourself.  We had a fire ring, BBQ pit, and a picnic table, with plenty of room for an RV, trailer, or tents.  We loved camping here!  It’s a remote area, so make sure you have lots of food, water, fuel, and tire changing equipment.  Not all the campsites have picnic tables or fire rings though.

We then went to see some more ruins on the east side of Comb Ridge in Butler Wash.  The drive was nice and sandy and my Impala didn’t have any trouble making it through.  These ruins just looked like square rocks from a telephoto lens, which made me not sure what they were.  It was never a guarantee that these square rocks would turn out to be ruins, but it was guaranteed to be an adventure nonetheless.   

I never found a name for these, but they looked significant enough to make us excited to see what was there! We drove as close as we could to the ruins and hiked the rest of the way.  We came to the back of a small canyon and I was able to climb above it to see if the ruins were there – they were!  I wasn’t expecting them to be gone, but I was happy to see that they weren’t much farther for us and they were indeed ruins! 

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It was a little too steep here for Maggie, so Kevin and Maggie had to circle around to find a better place to climb up.  They eventually got to where I was and we hiked up to the ruins.  We knew it wasn’t good to have pets inside or near ruins (maybe it’s illegal too?), so we tied Maggie up nearby and she watched us get closer to the ruins.  

These ruins were amazing!  They were located right on a precarious steep edge that seemed like the whole structure would fall down!  The structures were of course, carefully planned, and have already withstood 1,000+ years of rain and erosion and still had good fitting. 

These ruins had about four rooms with a possibility of more in the cave directly underneath the ruins above.  The Ancestral Pueblo used wood as supports in the walls in addition to the rock and mortar.  We didn’t see any petroglyphs, but we did see the initials “JG” carved in the rock wall.  It was very odd to be standing in the same place where people 1,000+ years ago grew up and lived. 

These structures appeared to be dwellings rather than granaries or storages.  They were much bigger and taller than the average granary, but who knows! We explored a bit around the ruins and found some Moki Steps.  Moki Steps are ancient carved steps that provide access to areas above.   On top of this area was a nice flat area that could have been used for farming?  Again, we don’t know for sure.

In order to save some energy, we flew the drone around to scout the area for more ruins.   We didn’t see much, so we packed back up and went to the car. At this point, we decided to drive south for fun to see what was there.  We eventually saw a giant alcove to the west.  We turned down the road and found a large parking area.  We then began hiking up the narrow canyon. 

We found TONS of ruins in this canyon.  It seemed like quite the community lived here.  In some of the ruins we found pottery shards, corn cobs, and pieces of bones.  It is illegal to disturb or even pick up anything in these sites.  Please be respectful and do not disturb the ruins or the even dirt.  Some of these areas are burial grounds.  Just admire and take pictures and enjoy!

The more we hiked the more ruins we saw!  We hiked the steep trail to the cave (which turned out to be Fish Mouth Cave) and found lots and lots of corn cobs and metate (grinding stones).  At the back of cave there were lots of visitors’ names.  It is not only wrong and disrespectful, but it is embarrassing to see the names of people who decided to deface this cave.  Some idiots even wrote their name, hometown, and date they visited.  In essence, it’s a Wall of Shame of sorts, where, if you love to deface the beauty of the area, you publicly declare your personal degeneracy and write your name. 

We found a few actual pictographs of hands on the north side of the wall.  I hiked along the north side and found a few wall structures with more pottery shards.  For how many corn cobs and metate we found, I was expecting to find a huge structure up here.  It’s clear that the ancient structures were dismantled or destroyed at some point.  There was a good amount of water dripping from the ceiling, so the water probably eroded much of the ruins or at least caused some of their collapse. 

By this point, both Kevin and I ran out of water.  Good thing the car wasn’t far away.  We got back to the car and headed back to camp.  Kevin had some old cherry wood that we brought down to burn and it burned for a few hours!  Tonight we had grilled steaks, garlic mashed potatoes, Caesar salad, and Reese’s smores!  You NEED to come out to this place just to see the stars! It was colder this night, but our fire kept us hot until we were ready to go to bed.