Mule Canyon

Love ruins. 

My first exposure to ruins in the Cedar Mesa in Utah was Kane Gulch and Grand Gulch. Although I had seen ruins in Mesa Verde National Park and Chaco Canyon before that, the Kane Gulch and Grand Gulch experience blew my mind and had an extreme fascinated feeling there. In Cedar Mesa, you can observe ruins closely without barriers or other people (if out of season like we did in freezing December at 10F). It makes me imagine lives of 1000 years ago, makes me feel strange, and feel like their soul still floating around there. Standing near ruins even makes me feel like hearing their voice alive. That interesting and wired feeling is the power of ruins.

This time we explored Mule canyon. Mule canyon is amazing. There are 8 sites of ruins to see. All ruins are very fascinating to observe.

House on Fire

First ruin is very famous and a lot of people hike just for this site called House on Fire. It is only 0.9 mile from the trailhead. It is well preserved and there are 4-5 buildings to be seen. As you can see in the below picture, above the ruin looks like flame. That's why it is called House on Fire ruin.

Another granary(?) in House on Fire

On the day we hiked Mule Canyon was very cold. We didn't see any single person. That made me feel more mysterious to see a bunch of ruins where people had lives once upon a time throughout the year.
Buildings at House on Fire are all nicely remained. It is amazing to see still people can see these. 

 

 

 

 

2nd site

2nd site is 1.9 mile in. We walked up the canyon, not the wash. Sometimes it is easier to spot the ruin by walking up high. This ruin has two walls and a window. These walls are also quite nicely remained. I don't know other side of walls were collapsed or not there from the beginning. Fun to imagine what was like.

3rd site

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3rd site is quite impressive. Multiple buildings are under alcove, but cannot access to it, because cliff is too vertical. I wonder how the people lived here went there. Maybe they had ladder or rope to go there. How could they build multiple buildings in such a difficult access place? It is a nice shelter protected by alcove.

4th site: kiva

4th site, 2.7 miles from the trailhead, is a kiva. It is partly collapsed, but clearly one can tell it a kiva. As you can see in the second picture, a lot of logs are used to make the wall. Beneath logs are more stuck of stones. Also there are windows(?) of square shapes. Logs, stones, and wall of alcove were partly black. Possibly the black came from fire smoke made in the kiva during ceremony. One side of the kiva has a tall building, possible a granary.

kiva, closer look

I can imagine this was quite a work to make kiva here. You would easily notice that there are not many trees around here: wonder how far they had to search to get long logs used for this kiva. 

We wander and wonder around here and continued the hike.

rock art

granary

5th site has a nice shape of granary and a bunch of petroglyph. Circles, bighorn sheep, etc. Also a lot of pieces of pots, bones, and corns are scattered around.

wall ruin

6th ruin, 3.7 mile from the trailhead is wall ruin. This is really unique. As you can see in the left picture ruins are incorporated in the hole of rock and now looks like the flat wall. The second picture might be easier to get a sense how it was built. If you are athletic enough to climb vertically 5 meters, you can have an access to the ruins. With Mr.N's help (he pushed up my butt), I was able to look into the rooms. 

Wall ruin

 

 From outside it is hard to tell how deep the ruins, but once there, you see that there are additional room in deeper side in the ruin. It is really amazing. The most outside room is actually a balcony.

Wall ruin

 

 

The left picture is the close look once you climb up to the next level. You look inside from the entry and see another room deeper side. The next picture is the another room inside. It might be a bedroom or maybe closet or granary. Interesting to imagine.

room inside

I was able to climb up the next level, and  surprisingly, there is another upper level for this wall ruin. There is no way to go up the next higher level. I wonder how the Anasazi went up there. The below big picture you can see the next level. When I was observing the structure, I thought that this is like a modern multistory apartment. 

Wall ruin

7th ruin

7th ruin is not very big, but nice to see. It seems to be granary.

7th ruin

 

entrance

The last site, 8th site, 4 miles from the trailhead, is extremely interesting and quite a big site. First, it is a very hard access but we were able to get there. I searched on the internet, but none of the blogs reached this site. We had to scramble and bushwhack a lot to get to the site. It is only one way to reach there. Importantly, the last part is really narrow to go enter the ruin site. It is a very small narrow flat way with moki step (kind of rock on the entrance is curved so that not to slip off the cliff). Moki steps are found in the area for the very steep rocks in the area from Anasazi era. To enter the bunch of buildings under the alcoves there, you need to go through the entrance door. Apparently, in this way, it made possible to block enemy to come in. To enter you need to pass through the one person narrow ledge. If the enemy comes, the guard just push the enemy off to the cliff away.

whole picture

The left picture was taken just after entered the site. It is a big alcove, and you see many buildings nicely still intact. You might notice that the upper level of alcove has buildings, too. It was too hard to climb up there. Surprisingly, go straight and turn left the end of this alcove in the picture, there are more granaries there on the upper level. This must have been multi family thing. 

 

 

rock art

There are multiple rock art found in the site. Below are some representative pictures of it. Very interesting! A lot of hands prints are found there, as well as some animal drawings.

This left picture is the upper level granary (probably).

Ground level buildings. 

Personally this 8th site was the most fascinating site in the South Fork. Many different types of building made by various stuff (stones and motors), a lot of rock art in the multiple levels. It was a challenging access, but that means remote.

Enjoyed so much.