September 26: The Road to Rocks and Ruins

The weather finally broke, allowing us to do some of the serious hiking we had planned to do along Comb Ridge.

Comb Ridge is an jagged "Anticline" (like the teeth of  comb) pushed up by geologic forces millions of years ago, running over 100 miles from northern Arizona past Bluff City and culminating just west of Blanding.  It was an Anasazi hangout 1,000 years ago, loaded with ruins and rock art.  It rises about 600-1000 feet above the canyons to the east and west.

To the west is Cedar Mesa, also an Anasazi center and the place where Richard Wetherill discovered the Basketmakers.

I felt that the ground had dried enough for me to try driving the Butler Wash road that runs up the east side of Comb Ridge and connects to rock art sites and Anasazi ruins that I needed to see.  It was a good chance to test the capabilities of our Jeep.

Our goal today was a famous rock art site called the "Procession Panel," located about six miles up the Butler Wash Road.  We opened the cattle gate that guarded the road and began driving through the sand and slickrock.

The hike would take about three hours.  We knew we were on the right trail when we saw the canyon that looked to me like a big platypus or big fat walrus lying down.

The petroglyphs were up near the "mouth."

There are some 178 (or is it 179) small figures on the Procession Panel.

But what makes it interesting is that it tells a story.  Three lines of figures are moving toward a center circle.

This could be a sacred dance circle.  The lines could represent Anasazi clans from east and west of Comb Ridge coming together in a mutual pact.  Was this location a passageway between Cedar Mesa and the Montezuma Valley to the east?  Was this a record of an historical event?  Some rock art scholars think so.

Some of the figures in the line coming from the east have their hands raised.

They are accompanied by supernatural mountain sheep.  The line from the west has "backpackers" as well as people with raised hands,

a gesture that we find frequently in ancestral Puebloan rock art.  These figures are only about 2-3 inches tall, yet the fingers on their hands are painstakingly carved.

This gesture was important.  Also important were the somewhat larger human figures carrying a sacred staff and backpack.

All of them were headed for the sacred circle, which was empty except for a small pair of odd shaped geometric forms.

These forms are sometimes called "keyhole" images; Janet calls them light bulbs.  Whatever we call them, they appear with odd frequency in SE Utah and in the oddest contexts.

We felt that our hike would not be complete until we continued upward to the top of Comb Ridge.

What better place to see the landscape?

Below us lay the Comb Wash Road along the western edge of the Ridge.

And the canyons of Cedar Mesa further on.

It was a good place for Janet to text the kids and let them know we were doing fine.

From that spot we could see Monument Valley to the south

and the Bear's Ears to the north.

You remember them.

We stopped to share a tasty "Slim Jim" treat in the shade of an old, old Utah Juniper.

A stately survivor.  It probably has a lot stories to tell, but mostly secrets.

We still had a lot more sites along Butler Wash to explore.  Good luck.  The weather forecast predicted blue skies until October 6.