Round Trip Distance: 0.6 miles
Difficulty: Moderate
Elevation: 5610 - 5826 feet
Cellphone: 0 bars
Time: 45 mins.
Trailhead: 37.57625, -109.36089
Fee: none
Attractions: cliff dwellings, petroglyphs
Located on a ridge overlooking Alkali Creek east of Blanding, Utah is a ruin that sits on a ledge near the point of the ridge. Left of that ruin, on the same cliff, is a granary and a cave with two openings. Within the cave are the remains of a handful of rooms that were used for both storage and living spaces. Indications of there having once been some pueblo type ruins out in front of the cliffs are also evident as well as a few petroglyphs and some pottery.
To get there turn off of US 191, near the Recapture Reservoir Dam, onto the well maintained Mustang Road and follow it for about 10.5 miles and turn left onto the unmarked Alkali Road, CR 265. Follow it straight for 0.3 miles before staying right at a fork. In another 0.4 miles go to the left. The road continues across the mesa, passing an old well site on the right, and after 3 tenths of a mile begins dropping into Alkali Canyon. At the top of this hill on the left we marked a trailhead from which we hiked a short loop to some other sites that we called the Lower Alkali Canyon Ruins. Continue down into the canyon past that point staying to the left at the next well site and without turning into any of the other well sites at the 0.9 mile point from the trailhead at the top of the mesa the gravel road ends.
Continuing straight from the end of the gravel road for another couple tenths of a mile the 4WD road reaches a rough spot where the is room to park on the left. There is no point of driving any further, even if you can, as far as getting to the site that we are covering in this post.
There are no trails from the road but the general idea is to head up to the point of the cliffs. As you get closer you should be able to make out the ledge ruin and see one of the cave openings.
It isn't too difficult to scramble up onto the ledge to see the inside of the ruin but the better photos seem to be from below the ruin.
Around the corner to the left of the ledge ruin is a small cave that has been walled up and is still well intact.
To the left of that is one of the cave openings. Rather than trying to scale the cliff to get up to the cave all you have to do is hike on around the cliff to the left to the second opening where you can simply walk right inside. Right at the opening is another nice looking room.
Within the cave there are a couple of rows of rooms and the remains of some storage areas that were built in a crevice that forms a shelf along the side of the cave.
On your hands and knees or belly you can crawl through a hallway between some of the rooms to get to the other cave opening. Be advised that the rock is pebbly morrison conglomerate that is very painful for those not wearing heavy jeans.
There are other small caves further along the cliff that were also made use of but on a much smaller scale.
Around some of these there are a few petroglyphs and sharpening grooves and petroglyphs that were made of sharpening grooves. It was hard to get a good photo of this one because of the shadow so we outlined it on the computer to make it stand out.
Here are some other images that look a little like a pinwheel, or windmill, or maybe a pizza pie.
Several places along the cliff, and this spot just below the cave, look like where free standing pueblo type rooms once stood. Pottery can be seen scattered around these and on the slope of the hill.
