Ruin 7

Rating: 
Round Trip Distance: 0.2 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 6341 - 6385 feet
Cellphone: 0 bars
Time: 20 mins.
Trailhead: Ruin 7 Spur
Fee: none
Attractions: Ancestral puebloan ruin

Ruin 7 is one of the many ruins that are found in the Beef Basin area northwest of Monticello, Utah. The nondescript name is one of our own making for a site of no great significance to which archeologists have probably also assigned an equally inconsequential number. There are aspects of Ruin 7 that taken with its neighbors make it interesting to at least mention.

To get there first find your way to the Farmhouse Ruin where you can continue past that on the left. Alternatively you could use the Farmhouse Ruin as the trailhead for both sites as Ruin 7 is probably no more than a quarter mile away and who knows what might be found enroute.

One hundred yards or so beyond the Farmhouse Ruin take the first road to the right.

Looking from the turnoff there is a small hill up ahead on the right. The ruins are all the way on top of the north west end of the hill. Several easy routes lead up to that spot from this direction.

We parked off to the side of the road on the west side of the hill and scrambled up from there.

There was nothing to recommend that approach other than we did notice at least one old rock shelter. Notice that at one time there were rocks stacked along the sides of the overhand and possibly also in front. Another smaller shelter is on the ledge just above.

Ruin 7 is large enough that it is visible in Google Maps satellite view. We used that to pinpoint the exact GPS coordinates before we made our visit.

From the outlines of the rocks it appears that there were at least 3 large rooms that made up the original structure.

No signs of mortar or plaster are visible around the dry stacked stones.

Here in this small area it is interesting to imagine people first living in a rock shelter in the side of the hill that were followed by later generations living in the pueblo with its dry stacked walls that even later led to the very large structure of the Farmhouse Ruin. Of course, the rock shelter could have been a temporary dwelling while the ruin on top of the hill was under construction. The examples of pottery shards at the various ruins show a mixing, or commerce at least, with other people from whom ideas were exchanged as well as goods. The book 'The Last War Trail' by Robert Emmitt mentions a Hopi, we are suspecting from Arizona, that had traveled up among the Utes in the area of Meeker, Colorado. That example of intermixing along with the many of the peripatetic kokopelli with their knapsacks full of goods easily implies the sharing of new construction techniques and modes of living. Anyway, as far as Ruin 7 goes, if you would like to see it for yourself all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.