Cold Spring Cave, Buttler Wash, Utah

Cold Spring Cave is a great spot to look at the ruin in Butler Wash, Utah. It is only 2 mile out and back. Many things to look at the dwelling. 

Adults' handprints

First is there are many handprints. Obviously some are adult size handprints, and interestingly there are many small handprints, possibly children's handprints. It is common to see handprints in Anasazi ruin spots, but I don't recall to see small handprints. 

The left picture shows upper row with bigger handprints and lower row with small handprints. Considering their relatively small body sizes compared to modern human, it could be all adults. Interestingly there are two colors of handprints, orange color is easier to see in the picture but you might notice there are several white color handprints as well. 

The left picture shows more clear white handprints. Big hands. 

Another pattern and color of handprints. Spiral handprints? Interesting. 

Okay, I talked a lot about handprints, but there is so much to see at this site. The left picture is kiva. Nicely preserved the structure of round shaped kiva. 

A part of kiva structure. Fire is involved in the kiva (black stain) and the hole is likely to be air flow to keep the fire going. It is great to see this structure long after there kiva ceremony. 

Another fascinating thing about this site is that you can see numerous grinder places like you see in the left picture. Corn, flour, whatever was ground here. Even corn is left in the hole. One corn is about the size of middle index finger. Their corns are much much smaller than modern corns. At the cove, we saw easily more than 30 grinder places. I guess many people lived there! Interestingly animal (bighorn sheep) petroglyph is observed right under the grinding place. I had never seen petroglyph and grinder just next each other. 

Finally, the left picture is cold spring in the cave. The reason why this hike is called cold spring cave. Clearly people chose this place for living due to reliable water (and good water) source in the dry desert. This is the most back of all the buildings, kiva, granaries. 

Before the spring, there is tall wall with peep holes (left picture). Likely to protect spring. We saw 3 people from nearby town Bluff in the cave and she told us that people (especially women/children) here hid back of the tall wall when enemy came and check them through the peep holes. As I mentioned in the other entry about Moon House, each peep hole is designed to check a specific direction. Interestingly, the big rock used here at the bottom of wall has holes used for grinding. It is vertical, so my hypothesis is that, they used the big rock used to be grinding area to make the defending wall to be tall. Because cave is relatively dark due to limited sunlight coming, the light from peep holes are shining in the picture. 

The lady from Bluff was quite surprised about the fact we came to the Cold Spring Cave all the way from Mass. She said that she had never even seen people from New England before. She said, "Are you lost?" 

She said that several hundreds of curving rock can be found in the cold spring cave as you can see in the left picture. It might be used to make motor (between rocks to make wall, ruin etc). 

Very fascinating place. 

Birthday Arch, Utah

Another great arch hike. Soooooooo many arches in the American Southwest. 

This is called Birthday Arch. I don't know why it is called that way, but we gave it a try, because we were camping nearby. 
This hike is near the town Big Water, Utah. There are some dispersed camping in the area and since we camped at one of them, we hiked this one. Parking lot is just along the road. Maybe 2-3 cars can be parked. There was no car there and we did not see anybody in the entire hike. 5 miles of out and back hike. 

Little Arch

First attraction of this hike is "Little Arch"
It was indeed little, so it was hard to locate, but isn't it neat? Over the Little Arch, you can see the remnant of morning sunrise orange. It was nice crisp morning. 

Going down to the Wash

Then we went down to the main wash that leads to Birthday Arch, we went down the pretty pink rock. It is wavy (left picture). 

Birthday Arch

After some walk in the wash, rock walk leads to the arch. It is actually hard to spot the arch from distance, as you can see in the left picture. As you get closer to the arch, it gets more clear that it IS an arch. It is possible to go right under the arch. Much bigger than I anticipated as you can see in the below picture. Interestingly the wall behind the arch has cool stripes with black and white and brown. We had early lunch under the arch. Priceless time. 

Birthday Arch

Stripes

Another interesting stripes near the arch. 3D stripes! I don't know how these were made, but fascinating. 

After we enjoyed Birthday Arch, we went other side of wash to another small arch. In the above picture, can you see the Birthday arch through this little arch? It is nice to see two arch in one! Then we trace back to the parking lot. The last part of the hike was tedious because we had to walk a mile on a very sandy section just along the road. Despite that, still worth the effort to see Birthday arch. 

Toadstool Hoodoos, Utah

This is the most accessible and easiest day hike within the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. 

It's only about 2 miles total (out and back) with little elevation change. The parking is along the paved road, meaning no worries about dirt road driving. Most trails start along dirt road  in Grand Staircase, so this is unusual. The downside of this hike is that you can't expect solitude, which is always the case for Grand Staircase. The parking lot had more than 20 cars when we were there, since it was mid-afternoon when normal people are out for hiking. For us this was 2nd hike of the day. 

Despite the easiness, the scenery is quite striking. I think that hoodoos are the most eerie shape in the naturally made things. Yes it is geologically explained how those were created by ice wedging and I believe it, but still I am like "How come this weird and strange shape can be made?!" 

For those who are not familiar with hoodoos, here is the Toadstool Hoodoo. 

Toadstool Hoodoo

I first saw hoodoos in Bryce Canyon National Park and those are I think most famous place for hoodoos. Actually hoodoos are not only there, they are everywhere in American Southwest. In other places you can observe hoodoos in more solitude way. During this 2024 winter trip in the West, we did three hoodoo day hikes. This Toadstool Hoodoos hike is the least solitude, but still great. Other two hikes, which were much remote, will be posted in the future. 

Despite the short distance, this hike has many things to see in addition to Toadstool Hoodoo.

Left picture has an interesting two color layers. How clear the line between brown and white colors is. Amazing. Beyond the Toadstool Hoodoos, there is no official trail but you can just walk around. 

There are at least 50 hoodoos in the area. It is really bizarre feeling and interesting to see how unique each hoodoo is. 

Another interesting color bands scenery. This is the very West view. The blue sky is terrific. 

After we enjoyed this mid-afternoon fantastic hike, we headed for the evening-sunset hike (third hike of the day) when normal people go to a restaurant for dinner.