When I was putting together our journey from Iowa down to Mesa, AZ, I put Blanding , UT on as one of our stops because I had heard that the Edge of the Cedars museum was very good. I did some more research to see what else we might find of interest here and found a wealth of hikes among and to Anasazi ruins and petroglyphs in the Grand Gulch area. We made our reservation for a week but, as we all know now, the government shut down and we decided not to go into the Grand Gulch area, which is a BLM property. Now what? Well, Blanding itself has lots to see and do. Who would have thought that Blanding had so much to offer? Well, possibly the people who live here and the people who keep coming back.
Here’s my warning: this whole blog will sound like a brochure from the Chamber of Commerce. But, on the other hand, we really enjoyed out time here in Blanding and found lots to do.
ANASAZI RUINS
The area around here is chock-a-block with canyons, and every canyon is filled with old Anasazi ruins, whether granaries or homes or kivas or what ever. If you stand on the edge of a canyon, look down, across and all along the edge, you might find a ruin. We researched online and bought a book about some ruins in the area. Some are easy to find, well written up and documented. Some are right along the main roads, with signage, parking lots and circled with fences for protection. Others are written up with descriptions and GPS coordinates but even these write-ups are obscure since the authors would like to protect these sites. And, I’m not sure about the accuracy of the GPS coordinates. The authors will give you some general idea about the directions for finding the sites but will leave much of the route finding up to you. ‘Head up canyon’ to find the ruin is a typical vague direction.
We then constructed our travel around these, knowing that we would need to do some exploring on our own. We found some beautifully preserved ruins and we found some that had been vandalized. We found the House of Fire which I pictured on 10/2 and we found Monarch Cave, perched high in a large alcove but almost impossible to reach along very thin slanted ledges protected by poison ivy.
I find the water lines above the ruins particularly intriguing.
We found grinding holes and pottery shards.
All made us appreciate the way these ancient people used the land and worked with it to make their lives.
PETROGLYPHS AND PICTOGRAPHS
We found both petroglyphs and pictographs in out of the way places. Beautiful works of art lovingly pecked into the desert patina. We also found some white hand prints the like of which we have never seen before. (The white hand is above the red hands.)
We found the Wolfman panel
and we found the Procession panel which included figures all converging from 3 sides on a circle in the center.
I like the guys in the center, wearing fancy headdresses and waving ‘hi’ to all who climb up to see them.
HIKING TRAILS
Well, what else could we want besides challenging and beautiful hiking trails? We found some in riparian areas where we were walking through flowers, grasses, bushes and cottonwoods alongside a stream. We found some in desert areas and we found some high in the rocky Comb. Some led to ruins, some to pictographs and some led us into brush too thick to penetrate forcing us to turn back without reaching our goal.
4-WHEEL DRIVE, HIGH CLEARANCE ROADS
We probably found more of these than we usually look for but they were challenging and took us into the back country where we could hike, enjoy nature and find the ruins and the petroglyphs and pictographs. Some went through 15’ deep washes, some over 50’ high cliffs. All were ‘interesting.’ Luckily we have the necessary vehicle to do this, though ours is a ‘sissy’ Jeep compared to some that we saw in this area. But we like it because it has the space we need for storage.
At one point I got down on my hands and knees to inspect our Jeep to see how high the clearance is and how many plates we have to protect our oil pan and differential.
Gary thought it successful if we never heard the scrape of metal on rock.
ABSOLUTELY SCRUMPTIOUS SCENERY
One day we ate lunch in a saddle overlooking these two scenes.
But, every where we turned we found marvelous scenery. And the recent rains only made the greens of the vegetation emphasize the reds of the rocks even more.
PIONEER HISTORY
We went to Bluff, UT, 20 miles down the road and explored the history of the Mormons who settled in this area. And that story is in another blog posting.
MUSEUMS
There is a very nice museum in Blanding, the Edge of the Cedars, which has the largest collection of Anaszzi (Ancestral Puebloan) pottery on display in the 4 corners region. This collection is supplemented with many other artifacts from basketry to sandals to jewelry. In their display of sandals from the early Basketweaver period to the more recent Pueblo period, the curators make the point that the earlier sandals were of better workmanship and quality than the later ones. The hypothesis was that later people had less secure lives and thus less time to work on sandals. But, don’t we today also complain that things used to be better made in the past than now? Here is a sandal from the early Basketweaver period and here is a sandal from the later Pueblo period. Note the difference in workmanship. The first is finely woven threads while the second looks like it was slapped together.
Here’s one of about 20 baskets that were stolen form a a pueblo site and recovered with the help of law enforcement. The theft of historical artifacts from ancient sites is a continual problem. In 2009, indictments came against 24 people in the Blanding area for looting. In another incident on the same day, 16 people from Blanding itself were indicted for the same crime.
There is also an authentic Puebloan village behind the museum. As is typical these days, some of the village has been exposed but the rest is still underground.
Note the pristine condition logs in the roof of the first floor which held up the second floor, which has not survived. We learned a lot in this museum.
NICE CAMPGROUND
We stayed in the Blue Mountain RV Park south of town. Very nice park, level sites, well-maintained and clean, with a picnic table at each site, wi-fi, dog walking area, grass by many of the sites. Now this is not a resort: there is no pool, there is no mini-golf course, no central meeting room and there are only 2 books in the library. But, most of the people are here to explore and this park is close to those areas you’d like to explore.
COMPLETE VISITOR CENTER WITH SMALL MUSEUM
Blanding is a town of fewer than 5000 people. How in the world an it support a nice Visitor Center filled with books, maps, brochures and anything else you could want in a VC? Of course, it has a very helpful, well-informed volunteer staff. But, then tourism is one of the main industries of this small town. As we drove through town we were struck by the number of new homes that had been built. As we asked around, we found out that a new hospital had been built recently and brought in lots of doctors and nurses with families.
ATV TRAILS & ROADS
Now this is not my thing to do but there are many who do like to do this. Of course, we could hike these roads and we met a local hiker the last day who says he and his wife walk these roads often. He told us that these roads covered the area and that we could take some that went as far as the Comb, about 10 miles away.
VERY NEAT TOWN HIKING TRAIL AND LOCAL RUIN IN A NEARBY CANYON.
The last day we were in Blanding, we designated as an ‘administrative day’ a day to pay bills, make repairs on the RV if necessary, do laundry, clean the front of the RV, especially the front windshield for travel tomorrow, etc. We had not planned a long hike but, when 3:00 rolled around, we headed into town to walk the streets. We noticed a dashed line (which usually means a trail) on the west of town on the map and headed over there, luckily in our hiking shoes. Here we found a great canyon trail built with the aid of many volunteers and a federal grant. It went through Westwater Canyon, up and over bluffs and cliffs, around rocks down into the canyon itself. What a marvelous canyon. The local cross-country team was using it as practice for the cross country meet coming this weekend and we saw them making their rounds. Great serendipity and a great end to our trip to Blanding, whetting our appetite for more and making us wish we had discovered this earlier.
After this we headed over to what I had heard called ‘Little Westwater’ a local Anazasi ruin. Neat little site and entirely unexpected. A real capper to our trip to Blanding.
OTHER ATTRACTIONS
We have been in this area before though we stayed in Mexican Hat previously. While there we visited and hiked in the Natural Bridges NM, Goosenecks SP, took the Moki Dugway, drove around the Valley of the Gods and visited Monument Valley. We thoroughly enjoyed these also.
Whoever thought we’d find so much to see and do and so much that we’d like to see and do in the future? Certainly not I, said the trip planner. I know of trails I’d like to hike in the future and ruins that we didn’t have time to see. I’d like to go exploring in the Comb and find some ruins and petroglyphs that are not mentioned in the books. But, at 67, I am continually reminded of the song: ‘We may never pass this way again’ and we made the most of our time in Blanding.
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