Round Trip Distance: 0.9 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 6251 - 6299 feet
Cellphone: 0-3 bars
Time: 1 hrs. 30 mins.
Trailhead: 37.56824, -109.74118
Fee: $5/person/day, $10/week
Attractions: cliff dwellings, rock art
Arch Canyon is located west of Blanding, Utah in the Bears Ears National Monument. About 4 miles up the canyon from Comb Wash there is towering ridge that juts out into the canyon. On the end of the ridge is a solitary monolith. Tucked away up high on the south side of this peninsula there are a number of almost inaccessible cliff dwelling type ruins that can be easily viewed from overlooks on the opposite side of the canyon. Near the trailhead there are some painted hands pictographs and a few petroglyphs.
For turn-by-turn directions enter 37.56824, -109.74118 into your driving app. From UT-95 you will be directed north onto the Texas Flat Road for 3.1 miles to where you can pull off on the right and park. During dry weather this portion of the Texas Flat Road is normally accessible to most 2WD vehicles. Shortly after turning onto the Texas Flat Road there is a kiosk where you can pay the requisite fee before proceeding.
From the slickrock area that serves as the unmarked trailhead there is a low ridge just to the north. The best overlooks are on the east end of the ridge and on its north side. We have circled in red 3 places where you can find some rock art. The boulder on the left is where the painted hands are found and the other 2 places are where there are some petroglyphs. The approach that we took was to hike over to the painted hands and view them from below and then go to the left from there to where we could scramble up onto the bench that the boulder sits on and follow that around to the petroglyphs. From there we went on around to the north side of the bluff to where we could see the ruins in Arch Canyon.
There are more than a half dozen painted hands but only fragments of most of them are still visible.
One of the first petroglyphs is what looks like a head or face with 2 horns.
Next is a very long vertical snake. Facing the snake is a faint anthropomorphic figure that appears to be holding his hand out to the snake. The figure might be holding something like an eagle feather to tame the snake. All around these images there are others carved into the cliff like sharpening groves. Some of these form arrows, feathers, and other shapes.
Near the rim of the canyon you can pick out the various ruins on the opposite cliffs. There are others to the right of the red circle on the right that are almost out of the photo.
Most of these are so precariously positioned that it is hard to imagine anything other than a bird accessing them.
This ruin looks like it originally had 2 rooms. The room on the right looks like it had a 2nd story at one time.
It is almost unfathomable how they managed to glue these ruins to the nearly sheer wall of the cliff. It's also no wonder that these fragments are all that remain.
On the right side of a gap in the cliff there is another handful of ruins that are a little harder to see.
These ruins look small from a distance but zooming into them they turn out to be much larger. The middle arrow in this photo might be pointing to a kiva.
Way off to the left of all of these ruins is one tucked away beneath an overhang that looks much more accessible.
Besides all of the ruins Arch Canyon itself is pretty to view both from above on the rim and from below in the canyon as you hike up it from Comb Wash.
There are quite a few primitive campsites along the Texas Flat Road. Several of them within the first half mile or so are suitable for medium sized RV's. After that the road gets a little rough for towing anything. A few old fire rings can also be found up next to the cliffs by the trailhead.
Most people that turn off onto the Texas Flat Road are going to the House on Fire but there is a lot more to see in the area than just that iconic ruin. The Arch Canyon Ruins Overlook is just another 20 minutes up the road. If you would like to see it for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.
