Trip Report: Utah Backcountry Discovery Route October 17-22

[sixstringsteve]

From Comb Ridge we headed to the town of Bluff. I was particularly excited to see this town, since its where the Hole in the Rock pioneers settled and died.

We visited the historic visitor's center.

While most of the buildings were replicas, this one was real.

It was a Sunday, so the volunteers weren't there to give tours, but the center was open to walk around.

When i read "the undaunted" by Gerald Lund, I was really impressed with the Jens Nielsen character. He was my hole in the rock hero. It was fun to be in the place he help establish.

This was one of the original wagons that completed the Hole in the Rock Expedition.

We gassed up and headed to the Bluff Cemetary to see the graves of the pioneers that settled the town of Bluff.

I found the grave I was looking for; Jens Nielsen.

There were a few other historical pioneers there.

Then we took one final picture before we split into three groups and went our separate ways.

 

[sixstringsteve]

The others had to get home soon that night, but Trevor and I were determined to see some ruins. I was particularly intereted in seeing the "flaming roof" ruins from one of DAA's trip reports.

First, we headed to the Valley of the Gods. This was a first for both of us. It's funny, we passed at least 3 priuses on these gravel roads.

Valley of the Gods was cool on the ground, but once we climbed the switchbacks above it, it was far more impressive. I need to find a program to stitch these together as a panorama picture.

up top, the views were incredible.

 

[sixstringsteve]

Despite driving for most of the day, we still hadn't seen any ruins. I was determined to find Flaming Roof Ruins.

We followed the signs to the mule canyon ruins, and found some nice examples.

We searched the kiosks and explored the trails in the area, but we couldn't figure out how to get to Flaming Roof. We found Mule Canyon, and we were on the rim of it, but we could not see the ruins, despite wandering around for 45 min looking for a way down into the canyon.

 

[sixstringsteve]

I was determined to find the ruins before heading home. I found a spot with enough phone signal to research how to get to the ruins. It was frustrating because cell coverage was spotty, but I found directions. We found an unmarked dirt road east of the Mule Canyon Ruin site and we found a map that showed the north fork of Mule Canyon. Following DAA's instructions, we took the 20 min hike to the ruins. We were glad to finally be on the right trail.

after 20 minutes, we finally found it!

We weren't sure if these were real or not, but we told ourselves they were because it was cool.

I was surprised at how small the structure was. I would guess the structure was used as a granary or a place to stash their treasure. Either way, it was an incredible experience to be standing there next to evidence of such an ancient civilization.

From there, we headed back home, tired and worn out from a long week. It was an incredible week, and there wasn't nearly enough time to take it all in. I'm sure the readers are overwhelmed with all the pictures at this point, imagine taking in 6 days of these sights! It was an amazing trip, and I can't wait to get back and explore more of these parts in more detail in the future. Starting at bear lake and ending in Bluff, it was quite a trip. Seeing the Flaming Roof was the icing on the cake, the exclamation point to the end of a fantastic trip!

Day 5

[video=youtube_share;Gm2iQNBer2U]http://youtu.be/Gm2iQNBer2U[/video]

 

[jentzschman]

Holy reserved! LOVE IT!!!! Great pics so far Steve.

 

[frieed]

Wow,

Even when you don't get to go on one of Steve's trips, you still get to go on it right here.

I see you folks were enjoying the same temps I was in the mountains of Wyoming.
Main difference I see is we were exposed to 30+ mph winds. For three of the seven days we were out, the wind was too strong for a fire.
14 degrees with 30+ winds makes it really hard to motivate yourself to leave the comfort of your sleeping back. Luckily, I was sleeping in the
Jeep and all I had to do was crawl forward far enough to turn the key to warm up. I gotta get a remote start, that 3 foot crawl was mighty chilly

 

[DAA]

In order to make detailed trip reports, it takes a LOT of gadgets in the car. My wonderful wife was always charging something, or uploading images/videos, or saving files. You can thank her for her hard work. this trip report wouldn't have been possible without her.

Thank You!

- DAA

 

[sixstringsteve]

updated a bit tonight. I still have 2 days to finish reporting.

 

[DAA]

We had camped just east of Arches National Park. 1000 more points for whoever can identify this arch.

Skyline?

- DAA

 

[sixstringsteve]

I think you're right! 10,000 points for daa. I had a hunch you'd know.

 

[sixstringsteve]

Trip report is finally DONE!

I'll try to get the video edited in the upcoming months. It's a ton of footage to go through, but hopefully it'll be worth it.

 

[zukijames]

steve thanks for taking all the time to do these trip reports!

 

[TurboMinivan]

it was an incredible experience to be standing there next to evidence of such an ancient civilization.

I can understand this sentiment. While I've never seen anything like the photos you shared in this thread (which is sad due to how close I am to these places), I have had the opportunity to visit Pompeii. Exploring the ruins of a civilization that was instantly wiped out nearly 2000 years ago was very surreal for me.

 

[sixstringsteve]

steve thanks for taking all the time to do these trip reports!

I'm happy to keep doing them as long as people keep reading them.

 

[Cascadia]

Amazing!! Do you plan on doing this trip again in the near future? Obviously not this year but what about sometime next year? Or at least parts of it?

 

[Rot Box]

Awesome!

 

[sixstringsteve]

Amazing!! Do you plan on doing this trip again in the near future? Obviously not this year but what about sometime next year? Or at least parts of it?

We will definitely be going back to some of these places on the near future.

 

[lenny]

Great photos! Thanks for sharing, makes me want to go visit many of those places

 

[blznnp]

awesome photo and trip report as usual, wish I could have made it, would be really cool to see these types of artifacts.

 

[DAA]

Fantastic report on a tremendous adventure! Taking all that in, in just six days, is just incredible. Thanks for putting so much into this Steve, from planning to reporting, you go above and beyond.

I noticed something kind of interesting (to me...) in this picture.

Note his wife's first name, "Kirsten".

Well, all this time, I've thought the first name in the inscription pictured below was simply someone named "Christen" who forgot the "i" when inscribing his own name.

Now, I'm wondering if it may have been Kirsten, just spelled differently - "Chrsten". Or more likely, miss-spelled. Note, the last name is spelled differently too, it's what makes me think it is just a miss-spelling. I've seen lots of historic inscriptions where old time pioneers or outlaws have miss-spelled their own names. Heck, just look at the "Mat" Warner inscription in this trip report for an example. I took that picture near Robbers Roost spring, which isn't all that far from Bluff and the wall it is inscribed on is covered with old pioneer names from the greater surrounding area. Anyway, interesting possibility.

Thanks again for the great report!

- DAA