Pedro Point Southwest

The Pedro Point area has one of the easiest to find of the larger unpublicized Ancestral Pueblo Ruins sites in the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwest Colorado. The BLM road marked 4720, a west turn from County Road 10 leads about 3 miles to the site.

Road 4720 is a good road to hike on and is also a designated route that can be driven, though it is bumpy. I started my hike at the Pedro Point site and hiked south, looking along the rims of the several side canyons of Cross Canyon that are in this area.

After a few minutes of hiking I found this small wall on the bank of a small drainage. It’s hard to guess what this could be. I didn't see anything else in the vicinity.

On the west side of a moderately large side canyon there was another small puzzling wall section. 

I walked further south along this side canyon rim to some good view points but didn't see any other structures. This side canyon was crossable, so I continued east to the west rim of the very large side canyon that runs southwest to northeast and divides the area south of the Pedro Point Road.

Hiking northeast along the canyon rim, there are good canyon views but I didn’t notice any other structures. Eventually I intersected the Pedro Point Road about 0.5 miles east of the Pedro Point Ruins site. At this point, there is an old stock pond with some Cottonwood trees growing.

Rather than follow the road back west to my starting point, I decided to walk the short distance north to the south rim of the McLean Basin. About 100 yards northwest of the old stock pond, there is a large circular rubble pile site. This site is close to the road but not visible if you are on the road.

Continuing west along the rocky rim, there is a large boulder with a small wall section on one corner. There wasn’t any fallen rubble below the boulder. This looked like a building effort that started and then was quickly abandoned.

From the rim it is possible to see the road below and the starting point of the trail that leads up the green strip of Cross Canyon. To the east, the elusive McLean Basin Towers are visible with binoculars below cliffs as the road climbs to the mesa top.

The Pedro Point site is only a few minutes hiking further west. My total hike took 3:10 hours for about 4 miles. It was 68 F degrees at 10:30 AM and 80 F at 1:40 PM. I carried and drank 3 liters of water. In mid May there were a few of the dreaded June biting gnats in the afternoon.

McLean Basin Below Pedro Point

McLean Basin is a canyon area in Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwest Colorado. It is  in the vicinity of the Painted Hand Pueblo site, but located on the west side of paved County Road 10.

It is of interest as there are Ancestral Pueblo ruins tower structures known as the McLean Basin Towers. The first challenge is to find a route to hike down into the canyon basin, and the second is to find the towers.

Canyons of the Ancients is a find it on your own National Monument and there are very few official trails and limited information on where the interesting sites to hike to are located. I started my exploring at Pedro Point, where there is a good but unpublicized ruins site. This site is along the hike I call the McLean Basin South Rim Trail.

Scanning with binoculars from the canyon rim I couldn't pick out any of the elusive towers. There isn't a trail descending into McLean Basin here, but there is a drainage flowing away from the Pedro Point site that can be followed and allows a route through a steep sandstone cliff that is part of the way down the slope. The route isn't easy but is feasible.


On the flat area just below the steep cliffs, I noticed a small ruins site a little to the east of the drainage. This is still only about half the way down into the basin. This site is mostly circular and has some dry wall sections still standing, with the rest as rubble piles .

It seemed to be isolated, I didn't notice any other structures in the vicinity. There might be a grain grinding spot nearby. From here, the hiking is probably easier away from the small drainage. The slope is walkable and there are cow trails to follow down to the bottoms area where there is a flowing stream.

I crossed the small stream and made my way past a small group of cows to a road on the north side of the basin. In the center of the basin below Pedro Point there is a large hill. The road appears to be easily driveable for those who want to drive to this remote area. Scanning ahead, a rocky elevated point appeared to have some sort of organized rock pile on the top.

Climbing up to the top of this rocky point, this site looks like it could have been a large circular kiva and tower combination. It is positioned with a good view over the sage brush basin floor and the winding stream. Sage brush is supposed to indicate good soil for farming and the stream is a source of water.

Scanning around from this elevated position, it looked like there was a site on the central hill that I had just walked past. There wasn't anything visible from the steep east side where I had hiked. I didn't see anything further to the west that was close, so I retraced back along the road and climbed the hill from the easier sloping west side.This hill top site had the remains of a large circular structure with two standing piles. I had the feeling that recent visitors may have contributed to these piles, but the overall site seems genuine.

These rock piles are high enough to be seen from a distance and at least provide a clue that something is here. In this part of the McLean Basin, the findable sites are located on the high and rocky locations with good views.

I spent 4:30 hours on this hike but only covered about three miles. Most of the hike is picking a route up and down rocky slopes and I spent a lot of time scanning and viewing the sites. I didn't find the elusive McLean Basin towers this time.

McLean Basin South Rim- Pedro Point Trail

The McLean Basin South Rim Trail is a back country route in Canyon of the Ancients National Monument near the southern border of Colorado and Utah.

The route follows the dirt road marked 4720 west. This road is about 1.4 miles south of the turnoff for the Painted Hand Pueblo along paved route 10, and about 8 miles north of the Visitor Center for Hovenweep National Monument.

Canyons of the Ancients National Monument has a very high density of Ancestral Pueblo ruins sites. There are only a few designated trails to major sites. For the rest of the area, visitors are encouraged to discover them on their own. There is a rubble pile site in the first mile, close to the road on the south side. This site has some wall sections still holding together on the south end.

A short distance past this site, there is an overlook view point to the north toward Mclean Basin. The elusive McLean Basin Towers are visible from here, about 2 miles away, at the base of some cliffs.

At a point about 3 miles down the trail, near a view point to the north there I saw an intact wall section. Wall and room sections extend and curve around the rim of a side canyon over looking an area called McLean Basin. This site doesn't have a name that it publicly advertised, but appears to be called the Pedro Point site.

Continuing on around the rim, there are more large rubble piles and more intact wall sections. This site appears to be as large as some of the outlying Hovenweep Sites, but hasn't held together as well overall. It also appeared to be constructed very close to the canyon edge and to spill over the side, with structures extending down into the lower area.

Peering over the edge, there is an odd stone doorway structure. There are remains of other structures down below. There are some small alcoves under the canyon rim.

This site appears to have a seep spring, a source of water, and there are some cottonwood trees growing, a give away that there is water available here. Most of the site appears to be sitting on an outcrop of bare rock, giving it a firm foundation. I couldn't see any signs of mortar in the intact wall sections.

A small circular structure appears to be perched on a boulder. There are structures perched on boulders at several of the nearby sites of Hovenweep.

The rough road continues on and dead ends at a good view point. Below, in Cross Canyon, there is a meandering stream marked by trees and some dirt roads. It took me about 2:00 hours to get to the overlook point and 1:30 to get back for a total hike of 3:30 hours for about 7 miles.

It is possible to hike down into McLean Basin from Pedro Point and find two or three ruins sites in the area below. The elusive McLean Basin Towers are also down below but further east.

There are other small sites in this area that I found on later hikes. Use the Pedro Point related labels to find these sites.