Friday, May 9, 2008

Looking for Black Squares in Bullet Canyon

River, Ty, and Myself went backpacking last weekend into Bullet Canyon on Cedar Mesa. We were hoping to find the Perfect Kiva and Jailhouse Ruins which were the first two ruins that were excavated (pot hunted depending on who you talk to) in the Grand Gulch Area.

The canyon is full of ruins and rock art. The way to find the ruins is to look for the black squares that thier doors and windows form against the red rock background. The first day we made it to the site known as Perfect Kiva the only intact prehistoric kiva ever found. It was found in 1891 and still had it's roof intact. BLM reinforced the kiva in the 70s to keep it from caving in. It is an amazing site. It felt a little intrusive even going down into it and thinking of how many times the ancients had climbed down into that hole and conducted their ceremonies.

At the junction of Bullet Canyon and Grand Gulch we found many interesting structures granaries, dwellings and what appeared to be watch towers on top of sandstone pinnacles.

River did very good and packed all his own equipment and did not complain once.



River and I at the Perfect Kiva

River entering the Fourth World through the Sipapu

Down in the Kiva

Ruins high on the wall

Camp at Jailhouse Spring beneath the Junipers

2 comments:

Unknown said...

bri, looks pretty sweet, is bullet canyon anywhere near that last ruin we went with the newtons, i thought we were somewhere near that, weather looks good, see you guys soon
todd

McKell said...

I will admit that your trip looked fun, but not quite as fun as watching Mr.Darci or Roger and Osborn.