Round Trip Distance: 1.6 miles
Difficulty: Moderate
Elevation: 5611 - 5774 feet
Cellphone: 0 bars
Time: 3 hrs.
Trailhead: Jenny Canyon Overlook
Fee: none
Attractions: cliff dwellings
The Corncob Hollow Ruin is located southeast of Blanding, Utah in Jenny's Canyon. It is the largest, we believe, of a dozen or so other ruins that can be found in the north to south running canyon. Some of the ruins are high up on the canyon walls in inaccessible places but they are large enough to still be easily viewed from the canyon floor.
If coming from the north turn off of US-191 on the east side of the dam for Recapture Reservoir and follow CR #215 as it angles up the hill to Mustang Mesa. At the 2 mile point from US-191 turn right onto the Mustang Road. Continue for another 6.8 miles and turn right, passing through a gate, and follow the 4wd road that heads west on the south side of the fence. The land on the north side of the fence is private property.
The 4wd road crosses several minor washes as it parallels the fence heading west. Between these washes and the hump between the ruts a high clearance vehicle would be the best. It never hurts to bring a shovel on roads like this. We actually spent some time building up one side of a dip that looked too deep for out full sized pickup to drive through without scraping bottom. We also used some nearby flat rocks to make a ramp over a short ledge. If you decide to use a mountain bike or atv be sure not to park on the private property back at the Mustang Road.
From the parking area at the end of the 4wd road you can walk out to the edge of the canyon where several small ruins are visible.
Looking up the canyon you can see part of the Corncob Hollow Ruin. Further up the canyon there is a good place to scramble down from the rim to get into the wash. An alternate route is to find your way to the walkin trailhead and take the easy trail that the cows use. The cow trails are mostly easy and fast to hike.
The scramble down route drops over a few minor ledges that you can scoot down easy enough. From there it's not too hard to pick out a suitable route for the rest of the way.
The best looking trails in the canyon bottom are made by the cows that range through here in the springtime. The cows don't make trails to any of the ruins so you will have to find the more minor looking routes for that. Once you get down into the wash start hiking downstream, probably not more than 200 feet, and look for a small cairn on the left hand side. From this cairn you can angle your way up to the base of the cliffs where there is a good trail leading to the the Corncob Hollow Ruin. We didn't see that route until we were coming back down from the ruin. The way that we got up to it was by hiking all the way down to the spring and then fighting our way up through the oakbrush to the ruin.
The biggest sections of the ruin are built across two openings of a large cave.
The other large section sits on the long flat ledge of another cave. All of those pretty green bushes are poison ivy so you might want to look out for that.
We're guessing that they had a short ladder to get up to the ledge ruin.
A negative handprint pictograph is barely visible above one of the walls.
There were also some large rooms of the ruin that extended out in front of the cliff at ground level.
A large depression with small sections of walls shows the remains of what was most likely a kiva.
There are at least a half dozen grinding slicks scattered about on different boulders. Someone made a nice display of a few of the corn cobs that were laying about.
On the west side of the canyon, just down from the Corncob Hollow Ruin, is a perfectly intact single room dwelling that you can scramble up to, without too much trouble, for a closer look.
South of the overlook, on the east side of the canyon, are a couple of large ruins that are high up on the side of the cliff. These ruins would have required long ladders to access. This particular ruin had two stories on the right side and a single story on the left. Notice the long brown log on the left that the wall is resting upon.
There were also some large rooms of the ruin that extended out in front of the cliff at ground level.
A large depression with small sections of walls shows the remains of what was most likely a kiva.
There are at least a half dozen grinding slicks scattered about on different boulders. Someone made a nice display of a few of the corn cobs that were laying about.
On the west side of the canyon, just down from the Corncob Hollow Ruin, is a perfectly intact single room dwelling that you can scramble up to, without too much trouble, for a closer look.
South of the overlook, on the east side of the canyon, are a couple of large ruins that are high up on the side of the cliff. These ruins would have required long ladders to access. This particular ruin had two stories on the right side and a single story on the left. Notice the long brown log on the left that the wall is resting upon.
To the right of that ruin is another one that it stretched out on a long ledge beneath an overhang. This ruin would also have required a ladder to access.
The room in the middle is near perfectly intact while the rooms on either side of it are missing sections of their walls.
Across the canyon, and a little further downstream, is an interesting well intact ruin that shows two different types of construction. It might just be that they plastered the left side with a coat of mortar but not the right.
The last largish ruin that we noticed before turning around was on the east side of the canyon. They went through a tremendous amount of trouble to seal off the entire cave.
There are at least a couple of other ruins upstream from where we dropped into the canyon. This one is on the west side of the canyon a little upstream from the drop in point.
