Side Canyons east of Lower Cross Canyon

In the central part of the Canyons of the Ancients in southwest Colorado, the lower part of Cross Canyon, south of Pedro Point, has several east side canyons that don’t seem to have names.

 In this area, there is a loop road that is an established mountain bike route.  The loop has a starting point near an old corral that is about one mile north of the turn off to the Holly and Hackberry outlying Hovenweep National Monument sites, along County Road 10. This corral area is also about 3.6 miles south of the turn off for the Painted Hand Trail.

Across County Road 10 from the old corral, there is a dirt road trail that leads northwest. I followed this trail for 0.3 miles to a junction with another road trail that is closed to vehicles. At this junction, there is a rock outcrop with many large boulders sliding down the hillside.

Near the base of this rocky hill there is a rubble pile Ancestral Pueblo ruins site. I was only a few minutes into my hike when I noticed this site, a good start.

A collection of boulders is usually a good place to look further. Up near the rim, there is a very small alcove with a small structure. Other than the Sand Canyon area, there aren’t very many alcove sites in the Canyons of the Ancients.

At this trail junction, there is a choice of continuing to the northwest, or turning left and going mostly southwest, toward a rim area with overlooks of the lower Cross Canyon area. I turned left. I was able to continue for about 0:45 minutes, scanning the side canyons with binoculars.

There are a lot of good canyon views, but I didn’t see any more ruins in along this segment of trail. I returned back toward the junction and could have ended my hike after about 2:00 hours. But I cut north across the canyon head and looked a little further to the north and east.

There is a very long side canyon that extends northeast all the way to the south side of the Pedro Point area. I hiked along this south rim of this long side canyon and for a while I was back on the established trail, which seems to end at the rim.

I used a compass and started to hike southeast back toward my starting point when I came across a large semi-circular ruin structure. This site seemed to have a curious location. It wasn’t very close to the canyon rim or on a hilltop.The concept of shrines is somewhat vague, but this might be one. This site might be hard to find again. Looking east from the site, I could see vehicles on the paved Road 10 about 0.5 miles away, and the old corral is about 1 mile to the south.

There was lot of pottery visible at this site, including a few of the largest shards I’ve seen. There might be a small check dam across a small wash near the site. Check dams are easy to see when they are pointed out at Mesa Verde, but I don’t seem to see them in the backcountry areas.

Associated with the large circular structure was a site with several flat rocks turned on end. The interpreted sites at Mesa Verde describe rocks like these as possibly being the lining of underground food storage structures. From this site it took me 0:50 minutes to return to the old corral. My total hike took about 4:00 hours for about 8 miles. It was 72 F degrees at 9:20 AM and 86 F degrees at 1:30 PM on a late August day. I carried and drank 3 liters of water.

Pedro Point Southeast

The Pedro Point road leads to one of the easiest to find of the unpublicized Ancestral Pueblo ruins sites in the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwest Colorado.

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

About 0.25 miles south of the Pedro Point Road, there is a cattle guard and a sign that says “No Blading in Barrow Ditches between Signs.” The reason for no blading is the rubble pile ruins site that is very close to the road.

If you don’t hike to any of the hundreds of wild ruins sites while visiting the Canyons of the Ancients, you can at least see this one driving by. I started my hike by visiting this site and continued hiking southwest, using a compass as there aren’t any old roads or trails to follow. The walking is easy through sagebrush with scattered Utah Juniper trees. About 1 mile southwest is an obvious rocky hilltop that I headed for.

I didn’t notice any ruins on this hilltop despite seeing a number of pottery shards that had washed down the drainages. Looking north, there is another rocky hilltop between the one I was on and the Pedro Point road hilltop. I had good luck there later.

After about 1:15 hours of hiking to the southwest, I came across a trail that leads northwest. This trail looked like a mineral exploration trail. I decided to follow it until it seemed to fizzle out at the drainage between the two hilltop areas. Looking at Google maps, this trail looks like it connects with County Road 10 further south. There was more pottery visible in the washes through this area, but I didn’t see any ruins sites.

While traveling north and east across the drainage, I spotted a fairly large site on the south side of a hilltop that overlooks a junction of large drainages. The site was mostly on the rim and spilled down below the rim. There are a couple of places where the brickwork is still mostly intact. I was 2:00 hours into my hike when I arrived at this site.

The site has a good view down canyon to the southwest. Some of the formations in the northern part of the Navajo Reservation were visible in the distance, like Black Mesa.

Much of the rubble material had spilled downhill with a few bricks still standing. On the way to this site, I walked over a very small rubble pile site in the small valley directly south. That site was obscured by sagebrush so well that I was walking on it when I noticed it. It would be hard to find it again, but it is in easy range of this larger ruins site.

It took me about 1:15 hours to return to my starting point close to the beginning of the Pedro Point Road. This ruins site is about 1.5 miles west, more or less, of the junction with County Road 10 and about 0.5 miles south of the Pedro Point Road. There are no trails around this site and it doesn’t appear to get many visitors.

Hiking north and east I intersected the Pedro Point Road close to the rubble pile ruins site that is in the first mile from the junction with County Road 10. This site might not be noticed if you drive to the large Pedro Point site but should be noticeable to hikers.

My total hike took 3:15 hours for about 4 miles of mostly slow hiking. On a late August day it was about 75 F degrees at 9:30 AM and about 88 F degrees at 12:45 PM. I carried and drank 3 liters of water.

Sage Hen Hilltops

The Sage Hen area is located on the north and west end of McPhee Reservoir on the Dolores River in southwest Colorado. There are two established trails in the area that horse riders, mountain bikers and a few hikers use. This area is part of the San Juan National Forest.

One of the trails is the very rutted and rough Forest Road 500, leading north to the Dolores River McPhee Dam for about 4.3 miles. The other trail is a single track that starts at the same Forest Road gate and also heads generally north but in a more winding way. There are other minor trails that the horse riders might use. This area has been closed to motorized vehicles since about 2008.
 

The Forest Road 500 trail climbs through a sagebrush plain area with scattered Pinon Pines and Junipers and patches of Gambel Oak, and provides good views of the reservoir with Mesa Verde becoming visible the higher you go. The LaPlata Mountains with Mt. Hesperus are also visible to the east. Some of the hilltops in the Sage Hen area have archeological sites. I went on a series of short hikes looking at some of these hilltops.

There are two side Forest Roads that turn east from Forest Road 500. The first is after about 1.5 miles and the second is after about 2.3 miles. In the vicinity of the second side road, there is a hilltop that has some features that appear to be an archaeology site.

The pottery shards that are visible on some of these hilltops seem to be plain gray without any painted designs or corrugations. Some of these small pieces wash down toward the sides of the hilltops

On the top of the hill there are vague rubble piles. These seem to be less defined than many of the rubble pile sites in the Canyons of the Ancients, but seem organized enough to look like something was built here.

This hilltop area has a view of the main channel of the Dolores River, now flooded with McPhee Reservoir. It is within site of the hilltop area where the Escalante and Dominguez Pueblos are on the south side of the reservoir, and Mesa Verde is visible. The current vegetation includes sagebrush and patches of Oak with Pinon Pines and Utah Junipers mixed in. There are also grassy fields nearby.

There are several rubble piles scattered across the hilltop, two of the piles using larger and flat shaped stones.

All my hikes in this area have taken two to three hours, usually just visiting one of two hilltops at a time. In some places there are minor trails to follow and sometimes the oak thickets are too difficult to get through. There are also some ranching artifacts in the area including old corrals.

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.

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.