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Pappy's Pasture Ruin

Rating: 
Round Trip Distance: 500 ft.
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 6230 - 6238 feet
Cellphone: 0 bars
Time: 15 mins.
Trailhead: Pappy's Pasture
Fee: none
Attractions: Ancestral puebloan ruin




Enroute from Beef Basin, northwest of Monticello, Utah, to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, San Juan County Road 119 passes through a small park known as Pappy's Pasture. Just off to the left of the road in this area there is a small Ancestral puebloan ruin that we have called Pappy's Pasture Ruin.


From the main junction in House Park reset your odometer and take San Juan County Road 119 to the right. That road starts out traveling through Middle Park where it crosses a divide into Ruin Park. Continue straight at the 3.7 mile point where the road to the Farmhouse Ruin branches off on the left. From there CR 119 leaves Ruin Park as it climbs over another short divide.


 Where the road crosses the divide between Ruin Park and Pappy's Pasture and begins descending the hill there is a rectangular outline of a ruin that shows up well on Google Maps satellite view. After looking it over in person it didn't appear to have ever been more than an elongated rock circle or perhaps the outline of a pithouse. That's not to say it wasn't something else.


As CR 119 travels through Pappy's Pasture it comes to a spur at the 6.7 mile point that leads to the small ruin.


From the end of the spur road only a few hundred feet of hiking are needed to reach the ruins.


Like other so relatively easy to access sites the BLM has placed an American Heritage sign to remind visitors to do nothing that would cause any damage or remove any artifacts.


In an area where cattle once grazed it seems strange that this first foremost wall of such height could still remain standing with no corner walls or other means of support. We speculated whether some of the stones had been restacked to their present height. We're fine with that as long as it was officially accomplished as reconstructed sites can be more enjoyable to visit than complete rubble piles as long as it was archeologist working in conjunction with indigenous people to accomplish the work. Anyone else doing the work seems to degrade a site and damage its authenticity.


Several short stub walls create an outline for more rooms than the observable amount of rubble could supply the materials that would have been needed to construct them.


This photo might give a better idea of the pueblo's original size.


The ruin in Pappy's Pasture is a little out of the way for anyone not heading to and from the Needles District. Knowing it is there and only a short distance from Ruin Park makes it hard to pass up for anyone already in the overall area of Beef Basin. If you would like to see it for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.