Ruin Canyon to Cow Canyon

Cow Canyon and Ruin Canyon run parallel to each other in the western part of Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwest Colorado. Cow Canyon starts near the excavated Lowry Ruins site and Ruin Canyon starts a little to the southeast. Both of these canyons lie to the east and flow parallel to Cross Canyon.

I started my hike at the place I call the Green Tanks trailhead. This old drill site is about 5.5 miles north of the marked east turnoff to the Painted Hand Pueblo Trail along County Road 10, and about 14 miles north of the Hovenweep National Monument visitor center. From the parking area, about 100 yards south there are notches in the steep cliffs that allow a descent into Ruins Canyon. (In 2012, this drill site has a gate blocking the entry. You can still hike here but it is tricky to find a good parking place.)

There isn’t a marked trail but it is feasible to walk down the slope. The elevation change is about 400 feet. On a previous hike I visited a boulder based small Ancestral Pueblo ruins site that is visible from the rim, a short distance up the west slope from the canyon bottom. On this hike I went past this site again and climbed up to the mesa top area above. It took me about 1:00 hour to cross Ruin Canyon.

Only two minutes of hiking west from where I arrived on the mesa top there is a side canyon with a large ruins site on the west side. Here, there is a choice of crossing another canyon or hiking north around the canyon head. I chose to take the relatively easy level walk around, arriving at the site 1:40 hours into my hike.

This site extends for a relatively long distance along the canyon rim and spills over below the rim. It appears as mostly large rubble piles with a few wall sections holding together. There are notches in the rocky canyon rim to get views from below the rim.

There were several vertical rock surfaces below the rim, but I didn’t see any rock art. The pottery shards visible in the ruins area were mostly the corrugated style.

On a large boulder below the main rim structures it looked like a circular tower once stood. From this site, I navigated west using a compass across the mesa top, looking for the east rim of Cow Canyon. It took me about 0:45 minutes to cross.

Along the way I passed one mesa top archaeology site. It appeared as some low sagebrush overgrown mounds with a concentration of pottery shards and some rock work visible, but didn’t look like a village where people would live. Some of the pottery I saw had painted designs rather than all corrugated styles. The Pinon Pine and Juniper forest is mostly open enough to walk through easily with some zig zagging around fallen trees and shrubs.

I arrived at a point on the east rim of Cow Canyon that overlooks the junction of Cow Canyon with Cross Canyon 2:45 hours into my hike. There is a large sky island in the middle of the canyon junction area. I scanned the area with binoculars but didn’t see any large ruins sites along the canyon rim areas.

Looking north up Cow Canyon, the mesa top area where Lowry Ruins sits is visible about 3 miles away. Many of the ruins sites in this area are below the canyon rims and aren’t visible from a distance.

I recrossed the mesa top, and the side canyon, navigating with a compass, and arrived at the west rim of Ruins Canyon about 400 yards north of where I had originally crossed. As I was descending from this different angle, I was lucky to spot another ruins site near the bottom. This site is very hidden by the forest and would be hard to spot from an angle other then directly above it. It appears as a circular cone and is hollow in the middle like a dead volcano. On the east side, there were two lines of low walls between the ruins structure and the creek at the canyon bottom.

My total hike from Ruin to Cow Canyon took 5:30 hours for about 6 miles on an 80 F degree late September day. I carried and drank 3 liters of water.

Cow Canyon West of Lowry Ruins

The large mesa top Lowry Ruins is one of the featured sites in Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwest Colorado. It sits on a hilltop between two forks of the head of Cow Canyon and is the center a large community of outlying sites.

Near the parking area a primitive road heads south and allows hikers to explore for some of the surrounding sites. Lowry Ruins is located 9 miles west of Pleasant View, CO on County Road CC.

I hiked south of Lowry Ruins along the primitive road for about 0.5 miles, and then turned west to the east rim of the Cow Canyon west fork. Scanning with binoculars, it looked like there was a nearby alcove site below a canyon rim and further on I could see a rubble pile in a higher layer of cliffs. The alcove site was a little vague but there was a rubble pile under the cover of a shallow rock covering.

The rubble pile site was a little tricky to find, even though it was clearly visible from a distance. From above it was hard to get a good angle to view it, and several trees have taken root right in the middle of the site. It took me 1:00 hour of scanning and hiking to arrive at this moderate sized site.

From below, it appeared to be based on a large boulder with a lot of rubble having slipped off and formed a pile down below. I spent about 1 hour exploring the area around these two ruins sites. After viewing these sites I hiked slowly south about 1 mile along the east rim of the west fork to the point that overlooks the junction of the two forks of Cow Canyon. I didn’t notice any ruins sites along the way to the point.

This junction had very steep cliffs and a good view down Cow Canyon. I thought that the jumble of rocks at the point looked like a good location for ruins site but all the sites in this area appear to be closer to the canyon bottom in the east fork, which seems to have better southern exposure and was closer to the water source. Continuing back north along the rim I saw three likely boulder based sites well below the rim, close to the creek at the bottom. The northern most of these three sites I had visited before. On this hike, I only viewed these sites from the rim.

My total hike took 4:40 hours for about 4 miles. I carried and drank 3 liters of water on a 75 F degree day that had higher humidity than is typical in this area.

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Cow Canyon East of Lowry Ruins

The Lowry Ruins site, 9 miles west of Pleasant View Colorado along County Road CC, is the center of the large Cow Canyon Ancestral Pueblo community. For this hike I navigated southeast about 0.5 miles through the Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper forest, looking for the west rim of the east fork of Cow Canyon.

There isn’t a trail to follow and I used a compass to guide my direction. The forest is open enough to hike through, with only the fallen Pinon Pines to avoid. I arrived at a point that is about 0.5 miles south and east of Lowry Ruin. From this view point I was luckily only about 200 yards up canyon from two large ruins sites, one on each side of the canyon. They are in this view, but mostly obscured by the forest.

I noticed the site on the opposite side of the canyon first. It appears to be a large rubble pile that is overgrown with sage brush. Looking at it with binoculars, I could see a small wall section below the rim in an alcove and more rubble on the slope below the rim.

The site on the west rim appears to be much larger. There are very large and extensive rubble piles on the west rim. This site is much like the interpreted Sand Canyon Pueblo site in size and appearance.

I found a notch in the cliffs to get below the rim. The site is as large below the rim as it is above. The slope is steep in spots and there is tangled vegetation in the way so the walking below isn’t very easy. There are at least two boulder top building sites, but I didn’t see any wall sections that had held together here. I didn’t try to cross the canyon to get to the site on the other side.

There is about 0.5 miles of west rim south of this large site to follow out to the lookout point overlooking Cow Canyon as it makes a swing toward the west. I noticed a possible collapsed tower site perched on a boulder about half way to the point and another more definite boulder top collapsed tower just before the point.

The view of the tower from the lookout point is good and it is possible to descend to get a closer view, but I didn’t go all the way down. This site appears to be isolated. I returned to Lowry Ruins on the dirt road that runs straight south from the parking area. I spent 2:40 minutes on this 2.5 mile hike on a 65 F degree early May day.

Lowry Ruins South to Cow Canyon

Lowry Ruins is a large Ancestral Pueblo ruins site and a main attraction in Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwest Colorado. It sits on an elevated site between the two forks of the head of Cow Canyon.

Near the parking area there is a dirt road leading south that offers a route for exploring Cow Canyon. Canyons of the Ancients has many small ruins sites but it is a find it on your own park.

The dirt road runs for about 1 mile with Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper forest on the east and a grassy sagebrush field to the west. About 0.7 miles along the way there are at least two small rubble pile ruins sites in the grassy area. They can be clearly spotted from the road.

Both the sites I saw had survey pins with site number tags attached. These two sites are small and it’s hard to see anything, but it’s good to find these early in a hike that doesn’t have a definite destination. Continuing on the dirt road until it reaches the forest edge. I made my way to a rocky point that overlooks the east fork of the head of the canyon.

I scanned the canyon rims and the bottom area and noticed that there are a few cottonwoods growing along the creek bottom and an area of sagebrush on the canyon floor as it swings to the west. I couldn’t see any Ancestral Pueblo ruins sites from the view point. There is a short side canyon on the west side of the point that is easy to get around and continue along the west rim of the Cow Canyon east fork.

There aren’t any trails to follow here. I walked through the mostly open forest looking for points along the rim that offered good views. About 0.5 miles further on I saw a rubble pile near the canyon bottom, close to the middle of the large sagebrush field that was visible from the lookout point.

The top of the canyon is mostly steep cliffs but there are many notches and gaps to get through the cliffs onto the gentler slope of the canyon side. This site used some large boulders as a foundation and seemed to be reasonably large, extending down the hill for a ways.

There weren’t any wall sections holding together here except for a short section that used large stones. This site is on a shelf that is well below the rim but above the canyon floor, and well above the creek. This site was visible from the rim right above it, but would be hard to spot from any other angle as the trees hide it.

Hikers approaching along the canyon floor would have to be looking into the forest area carefully. It is in the portion of the east fork that runs east and west for a short distance.

Since I was already down in the canyon I decided to return along the bottom rather than retrace my steps. This was a good idea but I made a navigation error and climbed out on the east side rather that the west side, fooled by a small side canyon to the east.

When I reached the top, I could see the protective structure of Lowry Ruins and headed north for it, but was surprised when I reached the east fork canyon again. The bright side of this mistake was that I came across the remains of an old log cabin down below and was able to see the east fork of Cow Canyon from another angle.

I found a cow path that led back down and then up and crossed again. It took me about 2:00 hours to find the Cow Canyon east fork site and 2:00 hours to return for a 4:00 total hike for about 3.5 miles. It was an 84 F early July day with a good breeze blowing and I carried 2 liters of water.