Horseshoe Ruins Trail at Hovenweep

The Horseshoe Ruins Trail in Hovenweep National Monument along the south Utah and Colorado border is the first part of a 1.0 mile round trip to two ruins groups, the Horseshoe Group and the Hackberry Group.


The Horseshoe Ruins Trail Head is about five miles north of the Hovenweep Park Headquarters along paved Road 10, then east down a primitive dirt road.

Tower Point Ruin is the first structure along the trail and is built in a spot that gives a good view down Horseshoe Canyon. This structure gives the appearance of having been built for defense, but no one knows.

Back at the canyon head is Horseshoe House. The arrangement of four structures is apparently in a horseshoe shape, although it is hard to see that from the outside.

Horseshoe Ruins seems to have small peep holes rather than windows. At the Hovenweep Castle site in Little Ruin Canyon the peepholes are thought to have something to do with sky observations. The masonry here is thought to have been very precise.

There is a small natural bridge just on the back side of the Horseshoe structure, with more rubble pile structures near the bridge. The habitat here is Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper forest with sagebrush, Mormon Tea, and Prickly Pear Cactus.

Hovenweep is now surrounded by Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, preserving a larger area and many small Ancestral Pueblo Ruins sites.

Below the rim of the main Horseshoe structure is an alcove with another large structure. This isn't visible from the Tower Point structure. It is hard to get a good view of this lower structure.

Another 0.2 miles further past Horseshoe is the Hackberry Group of ruins. This group is thought to have supported a large population due to the more reliable water supply. The Hovenweep area is very hot in summer with spring and fall being the best times to visit.

Ruin Canyon East Rim-South

Ruin Canyon is one of the southwest Colorado canyon areas preserved in Canyons of the Ancients National Monument. This area is part of the Cross Canyon Wilderness Study Area. There aren't many developed trails in this National Monument and it is left to the visitor to explore on their own. There are often old roads or cow trails that are helpful.

I found a place to park off of paved Road 10 about 5.5 miles north of the marked road leading to Painted Hand Pueblo, and next to some old green tanks. Finding a reasonable place to park is one of the challenges in exporing these canyons. This area is north of the Hovenweep Visitor Center and also north of the Hovenweep outlying sites. I approached from the area near Lowry Ruins in the north part of the Monument.

In this area the paved road is very close to the canyon rim. I walked south along the canyon rim for about 0.25 miles, scanning the scenic area below for signs of any Ancestral Pueblo ruins sites. The view here is to the south toward McLean Basin.

From the distance, one of the large boulders on the west side of the canyon appeared to have some rubble scattered on the top. It wasn't clear that this was a ruins site, but it gave me a destination to hike towards and explore.

There were some steep ledges in the area where I went down, but with gaps that allow a descent. The cows that graze here seem to be good route finders, and I was able to follow the cow trails to the canyon bottom, where, in the spring, a small amount of water was flowing.

There wasn't much still standing at this site, but it was worth the effort to get there. It was something of a castle rock site with rubble piles around the base and a few fragments of wall sections wedged between gaps in the rocks.

It isn't unusual in this area to find ruins built on the tops of large boulders, though usually not much is left on the top. I scanned the surrounding area but didn't see any more obvious structures, though I tripped over a hidden one the way up.

My hike back to the top was more back to the north near where I parked and was less rocky going up. The canyon rim area here is very broken and has many nooks and joints that looked like good potential ruins site locations but I didn't see anything definite. My hike in this area was about 2:20 hours.

On a later hike in the fall, I started at the same point and continued south down Ruin Canyon toward the junction with Cross Canyon. The west side of the canyon has a shelf area between the creek bottom and the cliffs on the west side. I went down canyon for about 2:00 hours, maybe 2.5 miles, to a point near a side canyon junction, well before Cross Canyon. On the down canyon hike I stayed closer to the cliffs and returned up canyon closer to the creek.

There aren't any trails in this area, but the walking through the Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper forest was reasonable. The going was slower than with a good trail. There were some large boulder areas near the cliffs where I noticed some pot shards and a small rock wall, but it didn't amount to very much. In the area where I turned around it looked like there was an old road approaching from the south that led to a drill hole with a pipe still sticking up. A short distance north of the drill hole I noticed a circular rock structure overlooking the creek, hidden in the trees.

I was lucky to see this small site as it isn't visible unless you walk right past it. The Ruin Canyon in this area seems to lack sagebrush fields that would have been farming fields and, in the fall, there wasn't much water flowing at the canyon bottom. I spent 4:30 hours on the second hike and revisited the two sites I had spotted earlier, plus the two more small ones.

Sand Canyon East Rim Exploring

The Sand Canyon Trail is a 6.5 mile north and south route in Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, about 12 miles west of Cortez in southwest Colorado. The main trail runs on the west side of Sand Canyon and visits small Ancestral Pueblo ruins sites.

From the middle part of the main trail there are several alcove sites visible with binoculars across on the east side of the canyon, but the trail doesn't go over there. I started my hike at the north trail head to try to view some of these sites. However, in 2011, this area east of Sand Canyon is considered closed.

The second mile from the north trail head is steep with many switchbacks and descends 680 feet to the canyon bottom. Visible to the east are two drill holes, disturbed areas, with a service road connecting them.

Just north, this side, of the drill hole site there are two small side canyons that are options for climbing out of the lower canyon and getting up to the drill hole level. I used the more northern of the two choices and was able to climb out without too much trouble.  Crossing over to the service road, I followed that around to the south side the first large side canyon to see if any ruins sites are visible.

The large side canyon has two canyon heads with a peninsula in between. Viewing from the rim, there are two small sites at the upper end of the side canyon. This view is the second site. The environment here is Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper forest.

There are five sites spaced out along this south facing canyon wall, all associated with alcoves. This view is of the third and fourth sites. From the main Sand Canyon Trail, there are more side canyons with ruins sites visible to the south of this one. These alcoves are in the Entrada Sandstone. The trail guide helps identify the numerous geologic layers visible here.

The fifth site looks like the best of this group. This one can be vaguely seen with binoculars from the main Sand Canyon Trail. I took about 3:00 hours to get to this view point, including my stops and 2:00 hours to return up the steep trail to the north trail head. My total hike was about 5:00 hours for about 7 miles.

Horse Trails into Rock Creek Canyon

There are seven or eight small Ancestral Pueblo Ruins sites in Rock Creek Canyon that are visible from the East Rock Creek Trail at about the 2.0 mile mark when hiking along the east rim. There are horse trails down in the canyon to follow to visit these sites. The East Rock Creek Trail is a side loop off of the Sand Canyon Trail, 12 miles west of Cortez on County Road G in southwest Colorado.

I followed the East Rock Creek Trail to the 1.5 mile post near the canyon rim, then turned south along the horse trail for a few hundred yards until I found a path that leads down into the canyon. In the area of the trail post there is a steep drop off. In the canyon bottom there are horse trails that follow along the creek bed. Following north for about 0.7 miles, there are two minor sites in the first side canyon to the right. There is a good granary here and a wall section. I had to look around to find the notch to climb up on the shelf to see the sites. (In 2011 these side trails are considered closed.)

Back at the creek, look for a horse trail that heads west across the canyon toward a rock outcrop in the center, there are some wall sections on top of the outcrop and rubble piles around the base. This site is somewhat like the Castle Rock site at the Sand Canyon Trail Head. Around the north side someone has leaned a log that looks like a primitive ladder.
 

A short distance further west, directly toward the west wall in another small site with tall walls forming an odd narrow room, with a lower walled room to the left.
 

The horse trail then follows north along the west canyon wall to a larger alcove ruins. This one is visible a mile away when approaching from the south. The horse trail continues further north but I only followed it about 100 yards and then retraced my steps. Between this site and the narrow wall site, there is another castle rock type site that is mostly rubble piles.

From the west wall sites, I retraced my steps back to the creek bed along the east wall and then continued north along the creek bed. Past a barbed wire fence there is a horse trail leading east up the south side of another side canyon. A spur trail leads across to this site on the north side of the side canyon. This site is more than just the alcove cliff dwelling.
 

Below the cliff dwelling, there are large rubble piles and the remains of a circular structure. Returning to back to the horse trail it continued further east and climbed back up to make an obscure junction with the East Rock Creek Trail, making a loop hike possible. This junction is barely noticeable and is before the 2.5 mile post, so it is shorter to hike back counter clockwise around the East Rock Creek Trail, though clockwise will work also. My hike along the horse trails was about 6 miles and took about 4:00 hours.

Small Ruins Visible in Rock Creek Canyon

The East Rock Creek Trail was the 5 mile loop off of the Sand Canyon Trail in Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwest Colorado about 12 miles west of Cortez. In 2011 there has been some renaming and reorganization.

About half way between the 1.5 and 2.5 mile posts clockwise around the old loop, there are at least seven small Ancestral Pueblo Ruins visible from the trail west across the Rock Creek Canyon.



This pair of structures is about 0.25 miles south of 2.5 mile post. They are in the northern of two side canyons off of the Rock Creek Canyon. Below these two alcove structures there are the rubble piles of a pueblo.
Two more small sites are in the southern east pointing side canyon. The East Rock Creek Trail skirts along the edge of this side canyon, but the sites are somewhat obscured by the Pinon Pine and Juniper forest and are off to the west, not easily noticed when hiking and looking straight ahead. The site to the left looks like a good granary.

Binoculars are handy to view these somewhat distant sites. There is a site on the far canyon wall in the middle of this view. The rock outcrop in the middle of the canyon floor is also a ruins site, but not easy to see from the rim.

 It is good strategy to spot these sites before hiking down into the canyon for closer views, so you know what you are looking for and where they are in relation to each other. (However, in 2011 the side trail down for the closer look is considered to be closed.)

A little to the north of the previous two sites there is another alcove site. This alcove is visible a long distance away and was the first one visible approaching from the south.

The officially unnamed Rock Creek Trail (in 2011 renamed the East Rock Creek Trail) passes above these sites but they aren't visible from the trail. There are at least four sites in the first 1.5 miles of the East Rock Creek Trail, and two on the last leg returning to the trail head. With these seven, there are at least 13 small ruins to view within the 5.0 mile hike.

In the early sections of the trail the geologic layer, Entrada Sandstone, that forms good alcoves is above the trail, but this layer descends below the trail in the middle part of the hike.