Round Trip Distance: 2.7 miles
Difficulty: Moderate
Elevation: 4891 - 5185 feet
Cellphone: 0-3 bars
Time: 2 hrs. 30 mins.
Trailhead: 37.42803, -109.62440
Fee: $5/person/day
Attractions: ruin, petroglyphs, pottery
The 4 Room Ruin is the name we gave to a small site that is on the east side of the Lower Butler Wash Road, across from the well known Fishmouth Cave, near Bluff, Utah. All that is left of the ruin are some short sections of wall and some piles of rubble. Besides the ruins location the most interesting aspect of the site is the large amount of pottery shards that are scattered about. Also present are some sharpening grooves and a couple of very faint petroglyphs.
For turn-by-turn directions enter 37.42803, -109.62440 into your driving app. From the fee station near the Wolfman Panel trailhead you will be directed along the Lower Butler Wash Road for about 11.9 miles. At that point you will turn right onto a side road that within a half mile will lead you to a turn around loop where a corral will be on your left and you will find a primitive campsite beneath some cottonwood trees.
From the trailhead follow the old 4WD road as it heads east. If you get up out of the wash and hike along the sandstone you might notice a cairn that marks a spot where other hikers have been scrambling up the slickrock to get on top of everything. It doesn't much matter whether you scramble up at the cairn or some other spot that looks to your liking because once you get up there you won't find any trails to follow. You could even keep going until you reach the wash where the natural arch is located.
The object is to get over the top so you can hike along the lower sandstone bluff until you reach the site which is up ahead near a point of the ridge another half mile or so away.
As you approach the site you will begin seeing large amounts of pottery scattered about on the ground. Be sure to leave every bit of it where you find it for others to enjoy.
There are a lot of corrugated shards and a few decorated monochrome pieces.
A few of the pieces are the size of your hand.
The ruin itself is stretched out along the wall of the short cliff. There is still some masonry stuck to the face of the cliff, and a few short walls, but most everything else has fallen into rubble. There could be more than 4 rooms but there are at least that many.
At the north end of the cliff there are some sharpening grooves and some pecked dots and lines that form some sort of images.
Continuing around the end of the cliff there are a series of shallow overhangs.
We climbed up to the first one that looked a little promising and found a few large pieces of pottery but no other signs of habitation.
From the last site where there was some pottery it is easy to scramble up on top of the cliffs and find the old 4WD road that we started out on. Following that back to the south for about 3 tenths of a mile leads to an abandoned mine. If you feel a real need to go inside one of these old uranium mines you might want to consider wearing a respirator so you don't breath in any of the dust. Try not to wake up the bats!
The arch that we marked on the map is pretty close to the road and doesn't take much extra effort to visit. Since you are that close anyway you might as well judge for yourself.
If you would like to see it all for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.
