Round Trip Distance: 0.7 miles
Difficulty: Moderate
Elevation: 5689 - 5783 feet
Cellphone: 0 bars
Time: 45 mins.
Trailhead: CR 265 (37.57406, -109.37360)
Fee: none
Attractions: cliff dwellings, pottery
Located east of Blanding, Utah in a fork of Lower Alkali Canyon are 3 or 4 cliff dwelling type of ruins that are built within the alcoves and overhangs of a short ridge. Also in the area is a good scattering of pottery and some interesting concretions.
To get there turn off of US 191, near the Recapture Reservoir Dam, onto the well maintained Mustang Road and follow it for about 10.5 miles before turning left onto the unmarked Alkali Road, CR 265. Follow it straight for 0.3 miles before staying right at a fork. In another 0.4 miles go to the left. The road continues across the mesa, passing an old well site on the right, and after 3 tenths of a mile begins dropping into Alkali Canyon. At the top of this hill on the left before descending into the canyon we marked a trailhead from which we hiked a short loop to the sites that we are calling the Lower Alkali Canyon Ruins.
The ruins are all beneath the overhangs on the opposite side of the canyon. Up on top of the hill before the road descends into the canyon is the only good place where you can park to get out of the way. From here you can go to the left toward the top of the drainage and traverse around to the ruins to avoid having to hike down into the canyon and then back up the other side.
Enroute, at a waypoint that we marked, there is a good scattering of pottery. Some of the fragments look like they were from the same pot that may have been sitting here when it became broken. Be sure to leave all the pieces of pottery where you find them for others to enjoy while remembering that it is illegal to collect them anyway.
From where the pottery is found the route continues by scrambling around the point of the cliff looking for ruins along the way.
All that are left of most of the ruins are fragments of walls and rubble piles. Here there was a small cave that was walled off with a granary on a higher shelf and another room that was built on the flat ground off to the right.
The best ruin sits up in a shallow alcove and is mostly intact.
Off to the right of that ruin is some graffiti and some tool marks.
On around the cliff are some small caves and the remnants of the ruin in this photo.
Down in the wash below are a lot of interesting looking concretions in a layer of limestone. The concretions all have what looks like a magnesium patina and are rounded in shape.
