I need to make a clarification. One of our main goals was to drive down the Comb Wash Road to visit the River House Ruins and, we hoped, hike to the Butler Wash Panel, an extremely important Basketmaker II petroglyph panel. Would they live up to our expectations, we wondered.
More to the point, it rained hard on Monday. (Remember the 7-inch annual precipitation in the Bluff City area?) I knew that the four-mile Comb Wash Road crossed the wash several times and decided to wait until Saturday to make the effort, figuring the wash would be drier by then.
The drive there passed the serpentine talus slope of Lime Ridge.
Navajo mythology claims that this was actually a mythical serpent waiting to be brought back to life. The prevalence of serpent images lends authority to this sort of belief.
At the end of the road is the San Juan River
on its way to the Colorado River and serpentine in its own right a few miles downstream at Goosenecks State Park, where it makes a series of at least five spectacular turns, one right after another.
Only an aerial photo could capture this spectacular site.
The Comb Wash Road was narrow and sandy.
I was pleased at how easily our Cooper A/T 3 tires handled the sand. I even crossed a muddy section of the wash, and my confidence in the Jeep grew. About a mile along the road, we stopped at a fork. One rough road was labeled the "Hole in the Rock" trail, after the 1880 Mormon pioneers who built it. Just then, another Jeep (a Wrangler) ploughed by us and stopped. Its tires were caked with mud. Out stepped a gentleman about our age and also in good shape. OK. Turns out he is a Christian missionary in Mexico, vacationing in the area. This was his last day before returning to Mexico, and he was coming from River House Ruins.
"You can drive right up to the ruins," he reassured me, as I looked at his tires. "Only be sure to watch out for the 100-yard stretch of road that crosses Comb Wash (actually, it is Comb Wash!). It's muddy and you have to keep your wheels moving." I thanked him for the advice. He had once been in the Lancaster County area. My wife and I were looking at rock art, I replied. Thus ended our theological dialogue.
The drive to River House turned out to be almost as much fun as the drive back. It was muddy, when it was no longer sandy.
I guess the wash had not yet dried out. There were at least eight river "crossings" like this one.
The Jeep kept the tires going forward, even when we had to climb a three-foot bank out of one of the washes. When the road ran out of sand and mud, it turned into rock and slickrock.
By the time we returned, the Jeep had mud on the roof, as well as sides.
I have not washed it since--out of sheer pride and a desire to fit into the culture.
Oh yes, we made it to River House. On the way, we passed an old trading post,
from the 1880s.
The ruins were spectacular.
The BLM was very welcoming,
expecting most visitors to arrive via commercial river expeditions. We were lucky in that we were quite alone as we climbed up to the site.
A couple of boulders guarded the ruins.
The tower kiva was still intact,
as were the multi-storied residential structures.
It reminded us of Balcony House on Mesa Verde.
But it overlooked the river, rather than a canyon.
On the alcove ceiling above the ruins was a very large (8-foot) Anasazi snake.
There were other pictographs as well,
including the usual mountain rams
--sort of strange given the setting of River House.
Several of the original doorways showed the influence of Chaco Canyon style
and the kiva had considerable smoke stains
and original plaster.
We stayed in the ruins as long as we dared. But eventually we had to move on to the Butler Wash Petroglyph panels, a couple of hiking miles up the San Juan River.
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