I call this the Gas Plant Trail in honor of the facility at the trail head. The Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwest Colorado has only a few developed trails and often the access to the canyons is blocked by private property. 
The brochure for Canyons of the Ancients advertises this starting point and there is a sign in place. To get to the Gas Plant Trail turn west off of Highway 491 onto County Road Y at the community of Yellow Jacket which is north and west of Cortez, CO. Continue west for a few miles to County Road 15 and turn south. At County Road U the road turns west for 1 mile. Across the road from the gas plant there is room to pull off the gravel road and park by the sign. There is an old road that leads down for a relatively easy descent into this canyon. I didn’t see a gate in the barbed wire fence, so I stepped over it, my legs barely long enough.
The old road is not immediately visible but it is easy to find. The road leads to the bottom of a canyon that appears to be a short side canyon of
Woods Canyon. I spent about 45 minutes exploring up and down this side canyon but didn’t find any Ancestral Pueblo Ruins, though the terrain looked promising with some flowing water in the creek and fields of sage brush growing in the canyon bottom.

The
trail continues south and west down the side canyon to the main canyon where there is a junction with a segment going north and south. I continued north, up the main canyon. To the south there are some major power lines crossing high above the canyon. While these lines detract from the view, they are helpful for navigation as is the gas plant which has a tall antenna visible.

The road north seems to fizzle out after about 0.5 miles from the junction. Scanning ahead with binoculars, I could see some large boulders with
possible rubble on the top about 0.5 miles ahead on the west. There are cow trails that continue along the creek bottom to the area below these large boulders. There was quite a bit of flowing water in the creek bottom, with even bulrush growing. Besides the Pinon Pines and Utah Juniper there were large patches of Gambel Oak in this canyon. This seemed like a promising habitat, relatively lush with vegetation.

This south facing site seemed to be a large one, spread out around several very large boulders and against the canyon rim cliffs, making use of some modest alcoves. I didn’t see an easy trail up toward the canyon rim but most hikers should be able to make it up. The rubble piles around the site were pretty extensive and there were several circular depressions with extensive rubble that the amateur would guess were
kivas.

The builders made use of the gaps between the boulders as well as the alcoves against the cliffs. I didn’t see any easy way to get all the way to the top of the canyon rim. Some of the sites in the area have structures on the rim and more that spill down the canyon side. Here, I couldn’t see anything on the rim, but there is
a lot just below the rim.

Except for the rubble on top of one of the large boulders, this site would be hard to spot from the distance. The remains are mostly rubble piles and are hidden by the thick forest. It wasn’t possible to step back and get a good overall view. To visit the site I had to wind around all the tall boulders and trees, without seeing what was ahead.
My return hike only took about 50 minutes so the round trip distance is about 4 miles. With my exploring and scanning and visiting the site my total hike took about 4:00 hours. I only noticed this one site, but this seems to be a lush area and there could be others both further north and to the south. I carried 2 liters of water on an 85 F degree mid August day and 3 liters would have been better.