Round Trip Distance: 0.8 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 5367 - 5427 feet
Cellphone: 0 bars
Time: 2 hrs.
Trailhead: 37.61021, -109.60803
Fee: none
Attractions: ruins, rock art
The Cottonwood Wash Ruins and rock art are located west of Blanding, Utah near the place where Cottonwood Wash is joined by Whiskers Draw. Found at this location are a couple of cliff dwelling type ruins and several panels of both petroglyphs and pictographs. One panel of petroglyphs includes a row of Basketmaker Style images that is 50 or more feet long.
To get there, drive west on UT-95 from US-191, 4 miles south of Blanding, for 6.3 miles, and turn right onto the Cottonwood Wash Road. Continue for 3.9 miles and turn left onto an unmarked 4WD road. There is room to park a trailer at the turnoff. Those in 2WD vehicles can choose to park at the turnoff and hike the 4WD road if they choose. To drive it you will need a high clearance vehicle, enough skill to avoid some deep ruts, and possibly the use of the 4WD.
Follow the 4WD road for 0.7 miles and find a place to park out of the way. There is an easy route down into Cottonwood Wash from this spot that will bring you into the wash at the point where the rock art begins. Another option would be to continue following the 4WD road for another quarter mile to where it drops down into the wash and begin from that point which is the same starting point for the Whiskers Draw South Ruins but in a different direction.
The first pictographs are white and easy to spot beneath an overhang. There are some faint red images to the left of them.
More images are found further along the cliff. Be sure to look at the top of the overhang for other images also. There are some that look like red tally marks or something similar.
Even further along the cliff, and all by itself, there is a larger Basketmaker Style image along with a couple of other very, very, faint images that are hard to make out even by enlarging them on a computer.
The rest of the sites are just past a deep gully that comes in from a side canyon. The high one on the right is the long panel of images that we mentioned. The middle circle is a ruin built next to a large boulder with an overhang that is down at the bottom of the hill, and the other is a good ruin that is higher up near the rim.
Some moderate scrambling is required to get up to the long panel of petroglyphs.
The top row has about a dozen large Basketmaker figures and a few other images. The middle circle is the remains of a masonry wall. And the flat surface below that has a nice looking deer and a few other images that create a hunting theme.
The images on the left of the long panel are a little blotchy looking. Notice the exaggerated size of the feet of the image on the right.
The images on the right of the long panel are much clearer.
This is about the middle of the long panel.
There was a lot of painstaking pecking needed to create these larger images.
The remains of the ruin that is down low on the side of the hill is a back wall of a room that sits on top of a boulder a little apart from the overhanging rock.
Off to the side there is a little museum that displays a good sampling of the various styles of pottery from the site.
The last ruin that we noticed is high up near the rim of the canyon. It is clearly visible from below and from the long panel of petroglyphs but it isn't too difficult to scramble up to it for a closer inspection. Be sure not to try to enter the ruin or do anything else that will cause damage. Other than that one peculiar hole in the corner it is in great shape.
