Visiting the new Bear's Ears National Monument - Wow! post5

A bright and sparkly morning...

the morning bed-head contest

big blue sky

Monument Valley in the distance

We went back down to the Kane Gulch Ranger Station and stumbled into our day's Anasazi adventure: Moonhouse. This is the good stuff. Only 20 people per day allowed. A serious scramble down one side of a valley and up the other side. A bunch of buildings; one with a corridor you can actually go into. Corridor??? Yee-haw!

Moonhouse ruin

Major ruins like this one have ammo boxes with a write-up of the ruin in them. They're always worth a read. Click these for bigger versions.
Moonhouse is a late period structure with a stick-and-mud wall construction of the inside rooms that was obviously much faster and easier to make than foot-thick stone walls. It also has a stone outer wall with a hallway inside and separate rooms off the hallway.

We have never seen anything like this before in our Anasazi ruin hunting. What a lovely surprise!

up into the main structure's hallway

dark rooms. thick looking smoke marks on the ceiling

walls between rooms -woven sticks covered with mud

inner room with painted decoration

looking + not touching + not going inside = excellent Moonhouse behavior

this decoration appears fairly often in this area. clan mark?

a granary further along the rim. there was lots more that we didn't have time for on this trip

back we went...

pool day!

We were hot and dirty. Time to check into civilization for a shower, email, Deuce orders and the pool. Our favorite spot for that: the Recapture Lodge in Bluff, UT.

Visiting the new Bear's Ears National Monument - Wow! post4

The next day our first outing is to Mule Canyon Towers and its five-odd towers on the rim.

There was excellent ruin spotting and even a nice way to climb down to a few of them below the rim - which we are saving for another trip when the kids are bigger.

riotously vivid yellow/green

bigger below

more

more

more

they're everywhere! 

ruin spotters - that's us!

N hydrating like a pro. yes, that's a Helinox umbrella he's carrying over his shoulder

That was fun.

A few days before, as we drove from Comb Ridge over to the Cedar Mesa area, we got a fleeting glimpse of a ruin right next to the road. The road was almost on top of it but because of the terrain, you could only see it if you were looking in just the right direction at just the right second. So for our day's second outing we decided to go there. Such is the life of a ruin and petroglyph hunter in the Bear's Ears National Monument.

it's hot. have I mentioned that we love our Helinox umbrellas?

we're on the right track

lightly carved creekbed

hell-o little ruin

hello! hello! didn't see this one

Anasazi corn cob

and right around the corner we find this beautiful little petroglyph panel

sheep! it's been so long since we last saw ya...

nice spiral!

had to check out the area upstream

lovely little spring - we dub thee "Fern Ruin and Petroglyph Site"

up up up to a meadow just below the East Bear's Ear

We were actually kind of shocked how lush it was. Down at Comb ridge, 4500 - 5000 feet elevation, it's baking hot. Just above, 5000 - 7000 feet elevation, it's a parched and oddly uniform Juniper forest,   but up at 8500 feet there are pine, aspen (and whatever that scruffy tree is in the photos below) and everything seems almost tropical by comparison. It's alpine (and most welcome relief from the heat and bugs).

relaxing, cool, no bugs!

magical walk