Round Trip Distance: 0.7 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 5700 - 5801 feet
Cellphone: 0-3 bars
Time: 1 hr. 45 mins.
Trailhead: Five Kiva Pueblo
Fee: none
Attractions: cliff dwellings
Westwater Creek runs down a long canyon on the west side of Blanding, Utah where a handful of ruins can be found inside of some of the alcoves. The ruins range in size from the famous Five Kiva Pueblo to ones of a single storage room or granary. This post will revisit the Five Kiva Pueblo and several larger ruins on the opposite side of the canyon that are within a few hundred feet.
For turn-by-turn directions to the trailhead enter Five Kiva Pueblo into your driving app. From US-191 you will be directed onto the paved Ruins Road, CR232, where it is 1.7 miles to the end of the road and the trailhead.
From the trailhead the route descends along several benches to reach the canyon floor.
Before getting all the way into the canyon look for a trail on the left that leads up to the lower ruin.
The lower ruin clings to a ledge beneath an overhang. At one time there may have been a dozen rooms distributed along the ledge but not much is left now except little fragments of walls.
One of the slabs of rock on the ledge has a long pecked line that wraps itself over a corner of the rock. Near the lichens there is a circle smoothed into the rock that is evenly bisected by the line. This may have served as a solar calendar.
Getting to the upper ruin can be done by finding the trail that leads up the canyon below the Five Kiva Pueblo. As you head in that direction you have to look for an alcove on the right that looks large enough for a ruin. It takes some minor scrambling to get up to it through the brush.
Enroute you should be able to spot several small granaries on the left that are both up high on the cliff and down low closer to the bottom.
The upper ruins is a little more intact than the lower ruin.
Here the alcove is deeper with a broader ledge providing more stability to the structures.
Being this close to the Five Kiva Pueblo pretty much demands us to give it another visit.
It has been 9 years since we last visited the Five Kiva Pueblo and it doesn't appear to have changed in the least.
Knowing where to look from the Five Kiva Pueblo it is easy to spot the upper and lower ruins on the east side of the canyon.
