Bluff, UT (10/5/2017

After arriving in Bluff on Wednesday, I spent Thursday morning driving around town, just getting re-acquainted with the area.  Although the town is very small, it has a lot of color and history dating back to when the Mormons first settled it in 1880.  A very complete museum and replica of the original town and fort is interesting, but I've seen it before.  The Twin Rocks Cafe and Trading Post has been here for many years, and a few homes were built in the 1890s.

The county is named after the San Juan River that flows through it, and is made up of innumerable canyons and ridges.  Every time I come here, I try to find new places to explore.  With more than 200,000 archeological sites in the county, there is always the adventure of trying to find some that are new to me.  This was how I spent most of Thursday morning, but had no luck finding ruins or rock art.  The canyon I hiked is said to have ruins, but I didn't find them.  Exploring some back roads in the LRJ, I did come to a nice spot overlooking the river.

In the afternoon, I decided to drive the Comb Wash Road, which parallels Comb Ridge for about twenty miles.  The ridge itself is about 100 miles long.  This photo shows only what I was able to fit into a single frame.  It does show the sheer cliffs and boulder field along the bottom of the ridge.  In general, the road stays several hundred yards from the base of the ridge, thus avoiding the boulders.  The trail is actually part of the route take by the Mormon settlers when they came here in 1880.

When the ridge was uplifted, lots of colorful sandstone and bentonite (volcanic ash) was exposed.  Erosion is gradually exposing even more.

I didn't expect to find ruins along this west side of the ridge, because the cliffs are so steep and smooth.  The east side of the ridge has many canyons and more gradual slopes, affording the ancient Indians better home sites.  Further, there was much better access to permanent water sources on the east side. 

With all the boulders around, the Indians used them to create petroglyphs, pecking designs into the rock's surface.  For some reason, there are quite a few of these on this side of the ridge.

I had read of a spur road leading into Lower Mule Canyon, where ruins can be found.  I tried several roads, but wasn't sure of the right one.  At one place there were several campers parked under the cottonwood trees.  I asked a lady there if this road went into the canyon.  She thought it was a dead end, and it did look like it.  Besides, it was getting too late to start exploring a new place, so I left with a plan to return the next day.