Hovenweep Canyon NW of Painted Hand Pueblo

The trailhead for the 0.75 mile Painted Hand Pueblo Trail is about one mile down the marked bumpy dirt road that is about 10 miles north of the Visitor Center for Hovenweep National Monument along County Road 10.

This area is west of Pleasant View in southwest Colorado and close to the border with Utah.  The trail to the outlying Cutthroat Castle Pueblo is about 0.5 miles further along the same road.

The first segment of trail to the Painted Hand Pueblo is along the west rim of Hovenweep Canyon. On this hike, I continued much further along the rim well past the Painted Hand site. About 0:15 minutes further there is a boulder based ruins site visible below the rim.

On the Hovenweep Canyon floor there is a trail that appears on the Canyons of the Ancients map as Road 4531f and it is open for hikers, horses, and bicycles. The two side canyons on the east side in this area both have medium sized Ancestral Pueblo ruins sites.

After about 1.5 miles, there is a side canyon where I had to descend to the floor to avoid private property that is close to the canyon rim. In this area, the canyon floor has some charred trees but is otherwise grassy. Near the head of this side canyon I noticed a large white sandstone rock outcrop that looked like it had some alcoves and I climbed back up.

This rock outcrop looked like a good location and I saw some pottery shards here, but I didn't see anything that looked like a ruins structure.

Continuing on for about 1.5 more miles I arrived at a very scenic lookout point. A rock positioned on the point was directed at the LaPlata Mountains, visible faintly in the distance to the east. This is probably a rarely visited point and this rock has probably been in this position for a long time. It certainly looks like it could be a solar observation point.

From this same view point, it looks like there is an isolated tower further north on the canyon floor.

Looking to the west up a side canyon, there is an obvious large ruins site, overgrown with sagebrush about 0.5 miles away. The cottonwood trees indicate there is water in the side canyon.

As I was resting and enjoying the view, I was surprised by two other local hikers accompanied by seven friendly dogs. These hikers knew that below this point, there were some turkey track petroglyphs and other markings that resemble the rock sharpening grooves that are often seen near ruins sites.

From the lookout point it took about 0:20 minutes to reach the large rubble pile ruins site. The site is at the head of the side canyon and is divided by one of the arms at the head into two parts. The rubble piles are very large but I didn't see that much was still intact.

The hikers that I met said that this is known as the Big Spring Pueblo site. I saw a surveying cap marker that had the number 5MT 7088.

From the ruins site I followed a cow trail down the side canyon, through a sagebrush field, to the main Hovenweep Canyon. This cow trail eventually connected with the main 4531f trail before it turns east toward Negro Canyon. So it is possible to walk on trails nearly all the way to the Big Spring site. The trail junction is faint but visible if you are looking carefully for it.

My return hike took 2:00 hours. I had to find a random place to climb back to the west rim before arriving at the Painted Hand site. The other option would be to continue the easy walking on 4531f to the Cutthroat Castle Trailhead. My total hike took 5:00 hours for about 7 miles. I hiked on a 60 F degree mid October day and carried 3 liters of water.

Hovenweep Canyon near Mockingbird Mesa 2

The Mockingbird Mesa area in the Canyons of the Ancients is south on County Road 12 from the junction with County Road BB for 7.2 miles and make a left turn at a BLM road junction. This area is west of Pleasant View, in southwest Colorado.

Staying to the right at the Mockingbird junction and right at the next junction for 1.5 miles arrives at a carbon dioxide plant near the east rim of the upper part of Hovenweep Canyon. There is a south leading dirt road trail before the gas plant that also leads into this area. On the Canyons of the Ancients map this road segment is 4531d, but I didn’t notice if it was marked in the field.

Walking west from the gas plant out to a point overlooking Hovenweep Canyon, there is a sagebrush canyon floor with a road that leads to a drill site. My hiking goal was to walk along the canyon rim and arrive at the canyon floor near the drill site, then look around the canyon floor area.

There are two large and interesting ruins sites in the side canyon area to the east of the rim where I was walking. (Use the label “Hovenweep Canyon near Mockingbird” for more views.) On this hike I was trying look further down the canyon beyond these sites.

Below the large ruins site and close to the rim, there is a large circular site. This looks like a large kiva but it the only structure in the immediate area, not part of a village as far as I could see. The large site is nearby, but higher along the slope.

I arrived at the canyon bottom in a narrow area with some large boulders on the west side. There was a cow trail to follow as I turned back toward the north. It took me 2:15 hours to arrive here after mostly slow walking with a lot of scanning with binoculars. This is about 2 miles south of where I started. There is a cleared area pipeline route that crosses Hovenweep Canyon in this vicinity.

Passing by drill site, there is an operating pump at the well and a rubble pile ruins site is visible on the cliff above. I didn’t try to climb up but it looks like a small lookout point site.

To the west of the drill site, across the sagebrush canyon floor, I could see two side by side boulders with some rubble on top. There is a deep eroded wash to cross and I had to look around for several minutes to find a reasonable place to cross. The sagebrush here is also very tall, thick and difficult to walk through.

There is a lot of rubble between the two boulders, both on the front side and behind. This appears to be a small site also, and it has a line of sight with the site across the canyon floor near the well site. This location is at a junction with a side canyon to the west of the main Hovenweep Canyon.

Continuing north along the west canyon floor, I noticed that there were many scattered pottery shards both in the Pinon Pine and Juniper forest and in the sagebrush field areas close to the canyon wall. I noticed one piece of red pottery. The area museums say that red ware was a product of Utah and Arizona and any found near the Mesa Verde area would have been traded in.

On the east side of the canyon floor there is another pair of boulders with rubble on top and scattered at the base. This site is about halfway from the starting point to the end of the road and is visible from the rim area.

From this site it looked relatively easy to climb back to the mesa top. This point is slightly south of the large ruins site that overlooks the side canyon to the east. From here it took me 1:00 hour to return to my starting point. My total hike took 5:00 hours for about 5 miles. It was a 68 F degree mid September day and I carried and drank 3 liters of water.

Hovenweep Canyon near Mockingbird Mesa

The route to Mockingbird Mesa in the Canyons of the Ancients is to follow County Road 12 south from the junction with County Road BB for 7.2 miles and make a left turn at a BLM road junction. This area is west of Pleasant View, in southwest Colorado.

Staying to the right at the Mockingbird junction and right at the next junction for 1.2 miles leads to a south leading dirt road trail that provides an access to the east rim of the upper part of Hovenweep Canyon. There is a carbon dioxide plant visible 0.3 miles past where I started hiking.

The unmarked dirt road trail leads about 2 miles southwest and then is blocked by a gate at private property. Near the end of the road, a carbon dioxide pipeline crosses the road and provides a cleared route down into and across Hovenweep Canyon.

Hiking along the road, I didn’t notice any Ancestral Pueblo ruins sites. Scanning up and down the canyon, I thought I saw a rubble pile and a wall with a doorway about one mile back to the north. I didn’t follow the pipeline down into the canyon, but instead hiked back north and found a gentle slope leading down.

The canyon bottom here is a side canyon to the east of the main Hovenweep Canyon. The Cottonwood trees along the dry wash made me think that there might be a ruins site in this canyon bottom area. Even though there wasn’t any flowing water here, there must be some not far below the surface.

I’m surprised by how often I stumble into ruins sites without any hint that they are here. This large site is completely obscured by thick Pinon and Juniper forest and isn’t visible from more than 50 feet away. This isn’t the site I saw from the canyon rim. The rubble piles at this site are tall and cover a large area but are overgrown and it is hard to view the overall site.

I didn’t see any walls that have held together. The good news is that the site is marked by the Cottonwood trees growing along the small drainage that joins the main drainage from the west. The L shaped pattern of the Cottonwood growth along the watershed is easy to spot from high angle views. I was about 2:00 hours into my hike when I arrived at this hidden site.

I continued north, climbing up a slope to a mesa top area. I didn’t see the ruins sites I was looking for on the way up, but I saw many pieces of pottery. At the rim I scanned around and spotted some rubble. Close to the rim, there is a circle of large stones and below was the wall and doorway that I had spotted from a mile away.

This wall and the circle above are supported on massive slabs of stone that have separated from the main cliffs. From this unusual large stone structure I couldn’t see anything else, but the rubble pile I had spotted from the distance was lower and slightly to the east.

The rubble pile could have been this large boulder based site. There are other small structures around the base of this large boulder.

I was stunned to find that there are two boulder based sites nearly side by side. This must have been an impressive place when these twin structures were standing tall. Both of these boulders have small wall sections still holding together toward the back of each.

Behind the east boulder, there is a wall constructed between two boulders. The upstream side of the wall has filled in with sediment such that you can stand at the level of the top of the wall. I wondered if this was a device to catch water flowing through the site and save it in a cistern.

The pottery shards I saw were mostly corrugated. There were only a few painted visible along with some smooth gray pieces.

For the return hike I walked the short distance west to the east rim of Hovenweep Canyon and followed the northeast leading rim back to the carbon dioxide plant. Close to the plant in a small drainage, I saw what I think is a check dam. I didn’t notice anything near the check dam but I was at the end of my hike. My return hike took 1:00 hour of slow walking.

My total hike took 4:30 hours for about 5 miles. On a late September day I carried and drank 3 liters of water. It was about 65 F degrees at 9:30 AM and 83 F degrees at 2:00 PM.

Northeast Hovenweep Canyon

The west rim of Hovenweep Canyon is frequently visited as the site of the Painted Hand Pueblo Trail, one of the few publicized trails in the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwest Colorado. The trailhead is about 1 mile along an east turn off of County Road 10 about 10 miles north of the Visitor Center for Hovenweep National Monument.

 About 0.5 miles south of Painted Hand is the upper trailhead for the Cutthroat Castle Trail, one of the outlying Hovenweep sites. A short distance south of the trailhead there is an old road that leads down into Hovenweep Canyon and heads north.

After about 1.5 miles, at the point where the old road crosses the dry wash, a good Ancestral Pueblo ruins site can be found with some exploring to the east, on the first level of the mesa top area overlooking the drainage. I visited this site before on the hike I called Painted Hand Neighbors. On this hike I continued north along the mesa top area. It has taken me about 1:00 hour to arrive at the Painted Hand Neighbor.
 

I climbed two more levels of mesa top and walked along the east canyon rim overlooking the northern part of Hovenweep Canyon. The canyon floor has a level sagebrush field and it looks like a forest fire has burned some of the canyon floor trees. There is a side canyon to Hovenweep Canyon coming in from the east.
 

Viewing the east side canyon from above, there is a gap in the mesa top area between Hovenweep Canyon and Negro Canyon to the east. The old road that is visible below is the extension of the trail that I started my hike on. That road appears to connect to the well maintained gravel road that enters the north end of Negro Canyon and is used by the gas and oil well activity.

I think that gravel road has a normally closed gate like the Mockingbird Mesa area. Hikers can enter but vehicles are blocked. From above, I spotted a ruins site near one of the cottonwood trees that is visible on the floor of the side canyon. I didn’t notice any ruins sites where I walked on the mesa top.
 

Walking along the mesa top far enough, there is another old road that climbs up the mesa top area between Hovenweep and Negro Canyons. This road provides a relatively easy descent to the canyon floor and then leads very close to the ruins site. The ruins site isn’t visible from the trail, so keep an eye out for the light green cottonwood tree.

The rubble piles are very high at this site, perhaps these were multi story structures. The site doesn’t appear to be based on any large boulders and has small drainages passing between the structures. The cottonwood trees indicate that there is water here, but I didn’t see any flowing water.

There are two large circular structures on the south side where there are some wall sections still intact. It took me 2:15 hours to arrive at this site, counting my visit to the Painted Hand Neighbor and slow walking and scanning on the mesa top. I spent about 0:45 minutes visiting this large village site.

I followed the trail for my return hike; it leads all the way back to the Cutthroat Castle trail head. On the return I sighted a small storage granary ruin high on the west side of the trail. In the same area, on the east side there is a small alcove with a wall across the front. My return hike from the northeast canyon floor village took 1:40 hours. My total hike took 4:40 hours for about 7 miles on 66 F degree late May day. I carried and drank 3 liters of water. I was prepared with repellant for biting gnats but wasn’t bothered by them.

Hovenweep and Yellowjacket Junction

The northwest corner of Cannonball Mesa overlooks the junction of Yellowjacket and Hovenweep Canyons in the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, near Ismay Trading Post in southwest Colorado.

After visiting a small ruins site along the north Cannonball Cliffs rim hiking route I looked for an alternate route back to the mesa top.

I was so stunned when I came over a small ridge that I gasped aloud. Besides being surprised by this ruins, this site has an impressive location that sits with a perfect view down Yellowjacket Canyon and up Hovenweep Canyon.

 There are many boulder based ruins sites in the Canyons of the Ancients, but this one seems to be perched on a perfect cube and has several clearly visible rooms.

I saw one large petroglyph image on the boulder foundation and a small spiral. I could see the Yellowjacket Canyon road and my parked car from this site. It is visible with binoculars from down below, but is hidden when hiking along the rim. I didn’t find an easier return route than the way I came.

Negro Canyon to SW Mockingbird Mesa

Hovenweep Canyon in Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwest Colorado can be hiked across using the old mineral exploration roads. Starting at the Upper Trailhead for the Cutthroat Castle Trail, the west rim of Negro Canyon, the next canyon to the east, can be reached with about 1:00 hour of easy hiking. 

This area is about 10 miles north of the Hovenweep National Monument Visitor Center along County Road 10, then east on the marked turnoff to the Painted Hand Pueblo.

Below the west rim of Negro Canyon, there are three Ancestral Pueblo Ruins sites visible. One of them includes part of what looks like a circular tower perched halfway up a cliff, with some rubble remains on the rim.

It takes a few minutes of searching along the south section of the canyon rim to find a route down to the canyon floor. In the vicinity of these ruins sites, there is a vague ATV trail that leads east toward the dirt road that runs along the bottom of Negro Canyon, near the dry creek bed. The dirt road appears on the Canyons of the Ancients map as Road 4532.
 

Hiking near the dirt road at the canyon bottom, I spotted some unusual structures in the cliffs to the south.

These two walls are north facing and appear to enclose small alcoves in the rock face. More often, hikers see circular granary structures in locations like this. There is also a small arch in this same area.

From the bottom of Negro Canyon, I continued east along the south side of a side canyon, climbing toward the east rim and Mockingbird Mesa. The Mockingbird Mesa area is said to have a very high concentration of archaeological sites, and is also an area that has some industrial activity, mostly carbon dioxide and oil and gas wells.

There is a good road traveling the length of Mockingbird Mesa but it is blocked to vehicles by a normally closed gate. Hikers can enter the area and explore on foot.

While hiking northeast along the south side of the side canyon, I spotted a very large ruins site at the head of the side canyon. There is another old exploration road that crosses this area. It connects vaguely to the Negro Canyon bottom but I didn't notice it there.

I came across it along the way and followed it to the canyon rim. The large site is easily visible from the road and it is a short walk along the rim over to the site. It was 2:40 hours into my hike when I arrived at this large ruins site.

Amidst all the rubble, there are several wall sections still standing. Most of this site is along the rim and just below the rim.

The site didn't appear to extend back into the forest area. There is a drainage in the middle of the site. I didn't see any flowing water or any vegetation that indicates a lot of water, like Hackberry or Cottonwood trees. I think this site is known as the Seven Towers.

My return hike took 2:50 hours. I used the old road for easy hiking all the way from Mockingbird to the bottom of Negro Canyon. It was on the return hike that I detoured off the ATV trail and looked at the small arch and the small walled in alcoves. In the area near the alcoves there are more spots to climb to the west rim of Negro Canyon.

 From the Negro Canyon west rim it was easy hiking along the old road, across Hovenweep Canyon, back to the starting point. My total hike was 6:00 hours for about 9 miles on a 70 F degree mid October blue sky day. I carried and drank 3 liters of water.

Along the total route from the west Hovenweep Canyon rim, across Negro Canyon, to the west rim of Mockingbird Mesa, I saw four modest ruins sites and the one large one, not counting the publicized Painted Hand Pueblo. Almost all of this hike into the Ancients backcountry can follow existing old roads and trails.