Sand Canyon North Overlooks

About 1.2 miles west of the north Sand Canyon Trail Head, County Road N re-enters the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwest Colorado. At the entrance sign a gravel side road leads south toward the north rim area of Sand Canyon and neighboring Rock Creek Canyon. This area is northwest of Cortez, CO and west of Highway 491.

The trail leads uphill for about 1 mile passing through a forest area that has been burned, arriving at an overlook of the Sand Canyon and Rock Creek area. The trail splits at the canyon rim. I walked east first overlooking the point area between Sand Canyon and Rock Creek Canyon. I scanned with binoculars for Ancestral Pueblo Ruins sites but didn’t spot anything.
 

Along the west rim of Sand Canyon there is a large tilted boulder that had some rubble on top but I couldn’t tell if it was a ruins site. There were notches in the rock cliffs that would have allowed a descent down lower but I didn’t try to get closer. From this view point the three east Sand Canyon side canyons and the drill hole service roads are visible.

 Hiking back to the west along the trail and the rim the East Rock Creek area shows up well. The mesa top area to the west of East Rock Creek is called Big Point on the maps. Scanning from here I didn’t see any ruins sites below or out on the point.

Hiking back north, there is what looks like a collapsed tower overlooking a sage brush field from a low cliff not far from the rim area. I have visited this site before on the hike I called Upper Rock Creek Loop. That hike is on the western part of the same gravel road that passes close to the rim. This tower is very close to the gravel road but not visible from it. It is in the forested area south of the burned area.

Continuing north back along the gravel road through the burned area, I spotted a hilltop rubble pile that I hadn’t noticed before. There is a vague side trail leading toward it.

The rubble pile probably wouldn’t have been easily visible before this area was burned. The pile is cone shaped and looks like a collapsed tower. It is close enough to the other tower to have been easily visible if trees didn’t block the view.
 

 Next to the conical rubble pile is a depression with stone work that makes this look like a tower and kiva combination. These two looked like the only structures here, no other rubble piles close by. There were a few gray or white pottery shards in the vicinity. Looking northwest, this hilltop site might have a sight line to the sites that in the northeast part of nearby Burro Canyon.

My total hike to the Sand Canyon north rim area took 3:00 hours for about 3 miles on an 87 F degree mid July day. This was one of the summer days when afternoon thunder storms are typical. I carried and drank 3 liters of water.

Upper Rock Creek Canyon Loop

The lower part of Rock Creek Canyon can be visited on parts of the popular Sand Canyon Trail system in Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwest Colorado. Rock Creek Canyon has an east fork and a west fork with trails circling around both forks.

The upper part of the west fork can be accessed along the extension of County Road N, about 2.7 miles west of the north Sand Canyon trailhead. There is a place to park at a good overlook very close to the rim. I started my hike at the overlook and walked close to the rim, but there is also a dirt well service road that runs very close to the rim.

At the start of the hike there are also some views of the San Miguel Mountains far to the north. The area of this hike is shown on the north part of the Sand Canyon Trail Map that is available at the Anasazi Heritage Center in Dolores, CO.

If you walk along the well service road, there are pullover points where there are good views up and down the canyon. The first pullover view point is about 10 minutes of walking from the junction with the main road. At this overlook point I noticed a boulder based ruins site below the rim. Looking closely, there is rubble on the top of the boulder and rubble around the base. There are two levels of cliffs to get past to get to it. I didn’t see an easy way past the second level, so just viewed it from above.

While hiking along the rim, an exploration road is visible in the canyon below. The exploration road enters the canyon from the east side, crosses the canyon bottom and heads south, more or less parallel to the rim road. These two roads eventually intersect about 2 miles south from the lookout point. I arrived at the intersection after 1:20 hours of hiking and decided to follow the exploration road down below the rim.
There were spectacular canyon views down Rock Creek Canyon. I walked out to a point that I thought would be a good site for a lookout tower, but only got the good views.

The exploration road crosses the canyon bottom and then circles south and east as it climbs the east side. I was 3:10 hours into my hike when I reached the mesa top area. There are more good views back toward the area where I had just hiked.

The trail continues south and east when I wanted to go north and west back toward my starting point. As I was looking for a shortcut, I spotted a rubble pile on the east side of a sagebrush field area, sitting up on a low rocky cliff overlooking a drainage. This site appeared to be circular and open in the center. There was some additional rubble extending down the hill, but overall it appeared to be a small site. There is at least one more ruins site in this area that I noticed on the hike I called Sand Canyon North Overlooks.

Some of the wall was still holding together on the inside. From this ruins site I continued hiking north, not on the exploration road, which continued south and east. An arm of the canyon extends east so hiking has to stay straight north to get around it, but a short cut is possible. From the ruins site it took me another 1:40 hours to return to my starting point. The last mile was along the main gravel road that enters the area. My total hike took 5:25 hours for about 10 miles. It was a 58 F degree mid October day and I carried 3 liters of water.