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| Hiking | 2.80 Miles |
238 AEG |
| | Hiking | 2.80 Miles | 1 Hour 21 Mns | | 2.07 mph |
| 238 ft AEG | | 15 LBS Pack | | |
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| partners | | It's getting to be a broken record... MORE overnight rain in Blanding so Butler Wash Road, Comb Wash Road and Cottonwood Road will VERY likely be impassible, which mooted a full half-dozen hikes planned for this trip. So what are we to do?
Quick weather research revealed even though Bluff was only 24 miles South, it hadn't had measurable rain for a few days. The Bluff area wasn't on our hike list for this trip so some quick search was in order and we came up various options... Bluff Canyon and a variety of trails along the San Juan River.
Since the Bluff Canyon TH came up first it made the choice easy. After a few zig-zags on dirt streets we reached the trailhead, which had some kind of shrine. The shrine would have to wait and we set off for the canyon.
The first quarter-mile was a moderate but steady climb on a sandy tread through open prairie with small plants here and there, which got us to wondering, where's the canyon? Upon cresting the hill the question was put to rest. It's still another 1/4 mile to get into the canyon, but the views were already exceeding our expectations.
Spoiler Alert: Although we had an inkling early on, after it was all said and done, we would look back on this hike and deem it to be THE most enjoyable and scenic of all of hikes this trip.
For most of the hike North into the canyon the trail was easy to follow, with plenty of cairns along obvious paths. Once we reached the end of the track I had found online, somewhat of a path was still visible so we continued. Shortly after we reached a point past which it would become canyoneering, we turned around.
On the way back, being such a short hike, we decided to take a detour on what earlier I perceived to be a game trail a bit up into a field of large boulders. And wouldn't you know it, almost immediately we came across LARGE cat tracks, which had to be mountain lion. As we followed the tracks it appeared they had been following one set of boot tracks. At a point where they diverged, I followed the lion tracks up toward what could be a great spot for its den, but I lost the tracks after climbing over a wide flat boulder.
So, back to the relatively obvious part of the game trail, which we followed until the tracks led up to the rim of a steep, somewhat sandy and eroded slope down into a small bowl of a canyon. It was obvious enough that the mountain lion continued down the slope, to who knows where. While there was what obviously was a human trail leading down a less steep portion of the slope and East toward another part of the town of Bluff, we headed back along a use trail until reconnecting with the original trail into the canyon.
All in all, a very pleasant hike with awesome scenery with temps 62-70°
Back at the trailhead I took a few photos of the shrine (or whatever) but never did ascertain what it was for. If you want to waste a bunch of time down an AI hole, go ahead and search for information about it... I got a kick out of the first responses from AI...
"Perhaps the user is misinformed or has the wrong location" and "it likely is the Historic Fort in Bluff"
Well, I've got news for AI, I have geocoded photos of the exact location, which is over a mile West of what it thinks I referred to... the Bluff Fort Historic Site.
At least AI provided the caveat it could be mistaken. Yeah, I guess! |
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