Telephoto of cliff dwellings

The 1892 Moorehead expedition visited, named, and gathered artifacts at these cliff dwellings. It is interesting to read their description of reaching these difficult ruins by lowering themselves down on a rope, which was anchored to a juniper tree or sage.

They mention "faded cut steps" at the site, which I was able to photograph with the telephoto. There are two caves at this site, both containing cliff dwellings. What a job it must have been to haul water to this site.

"Owl's eyes" is my name not the official name of these cliff dwellings.

MOOREHEAD’S 1892 ILLUSTRATED AMERICAN EXPLORING EXPEDITION

In 1892 an expedition, with an unusual name the “Illustrated American Exploring Expedition [IAEE]”, visited this site and a hundred others in Colorado and Utah.

The five member expedition was led by Warren K. Moorehead, who had worked as an archaeologist at the Smithsonian Institute. Members of the team included a geologist; artist; entomologist; and a surveyor & mapmaker.

I had never heard of Moorehead or his expedition until I found the name and date of the expedition at a site named by them, called Monarch Cave ruins. The initials were neatly carved into a sandstone wall at that site.

American Illustrated was a magazine and the idea for the expedition was to find evidence for the “lost tribe” in order to publish a lead article in the magazine about same and to collect artifacts (pot hunting) for the upcoming 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.

(note: if you have never read the national bestselling book: The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson, you would enjoy it. A true page turner).

It seems that everywhere I go these days, Moorehead and his team had been in 1892. They did work at Hovenweep, McElmo Creek and all over Cedar Mesa. Many of the sites in the area were named by this expedition.

In the end the magazine went broke, leaving Moorehead holding the bag on some of the expedition expenses, but at least the artifacts they collected, were preserved (if not in context) to be enjoyed by others in museums, rather than in the living room of some wealthy, now illegal, “pot hunter’.
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PDA: PLEASE DON’T ASK. I asked for some help finding a couple of the cliff dwellings and Ancient Puebloan rock art panels which my wife and I hiked to and photographed on this day. I promised those who helped me that I would not be specific as to their exact location. I intend to honor those promises.

If you recognize any of the sites from my photographs, please don’t reveal the locations in your comments. Do as you like on your Flickr photo site, but please honor my request on my Flickr site.

Thank you GK for your “hints” that got me close and to L & M of Albuquerque who literally “led us” to the one site I most wanted to see.
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CEDAR MESA ROAD TRIP 17-26TH APRIL 2011 ~ Mr. & Mrs. Oldmantravels

In all we spent ten days and nine nights on the road, camping in the back of our pickup truck two nights, sleeping in our backpacking tent in Grand Gulch, and the other six nights luxuriating in the comforts of a motel room. Gas prices ranged from a low of $3.56 a gallon to $3.89, which was the highest we paid on this trip. We saw several $4.00 a gallon signs along the way.

Our figure 8 route took us through portions of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, and Nevada. We drove a couple of roads we had never traveled; met some truly wonderful people; took many interesting day hikes to places we had never been, and tried out some new internal frame backpacks on a short backpacking trip into Grand Gulch.

Most of our activity, and time spent, was centered around the Cedar Mesa area of Southeastern Utah. Though the weather forecast did not look favorable for the first portion of our time in Utah, it turned out fine. It wasn’t until the return portion of our road trip, where we ran into several storms (thunder and lightening storms, a nasty hail storm, and a few snow storms thrown in).

If any of you are interested, in for whatever reason on following the travel portion of our road trip, you can connect these dots to form the figure 8 route we traveled, from start to finish: Home in Eastern Washington; Pendleton; Boise; Salt Lake City; Spanish Fork; Price; Green River; Hanksville; Natural Bridges National Monument; Blanding; [several days spent in the Cedar Mesa area]; Moab; Cisco; Mack; Rangely; Dinosaur; Vernal; Duchesne; Heber City; Salt Lake City; Wendover; Elko; Lamoille; Mountain City; Owyhee; Mountain Home; Boise; Pendleton; & home.

2.Tuesday 19th April 2011
I was in for quite the surprise when I threw the canopy rear window open. Snow! Not much but our windshield was frozen solid with a coating of thick ice and snow. I had almost left our ice scraper at home, but was glad we now had it with us.

The sun was starting to come out as we drove out of our camp past a large group of young people, who had camped in floorless tents the night before. They were standing out in the sage brush bundled up in every garment they had with them. Their sleeping bags and tents were draped over the sage, while they and their gear tried to dry out with the welcome rays of morning sun.

We drove on to the Kane rangers’ station and arrived a little before 8 am. We viewed the mandatory film in order to be able to procure our backcountry permit on Thursday morning, when we planned to take a short backpacking trip down Government Trail, and then up Grand Gulch. Thursday and Friday looked the most promising for good weather.

The volunteers and staff located at Kane rangers’ station are perhaps the most knowledgeable and helpful people I have found anywhere at a rangers’ station. These folks hike the area (as one lady ranger told me “we ~ range ~ the area we are responsible for”). Super people!

We then checked into a motel in Blanding for two nights, stopping just long enough to leave everything but our day hiking gear and heading out to do some canyon and cliff dwelling hiking in the Cedar Mesa/Comb Ridge area.

We hiked to several cliff dwellings and rock art panels and covered a lot of territory. We met a couple our age from Albuquerque. I will call them L & M. They were our age and experienced hikers, who knew the Cedar Mesa area well, having come to the area year after year. When we ended up at the same “trail head” together, a long conversation ensued. My wife and I learned a lot from them, and when they invited us to join them to hike along with them, we quickly accepted.

We hiked for a ways with L & M and then took separate routes. Later, when I failed to find a site I had been looking for, they graciously guided us right to it. We had been close on our own but would not have found it on this trip, without their expert help.

We hiked with them for awhile more, then split up once again as my wife and I were headed to more sites where they had already been and they had their on field work objectives, so we thanked them and headed our own way. We hiked the rest of the day and didn’t get back to Blanding until evening. I had some nasty cactus “glochids’ lodged in my jeans cuffs, which took some expert tweezers work back at the motel, to get out.

NOTE: I promised a Flickr hiker, who gave me some valuable “hints” about the location of a couple of sites we hiked to, that I would not post or give information about where they are and how to find them. I made a similar commitment to L & M. I intend to honor those promises to these nice people, so other than what information I give with the photographs themselves, I will provide no other. I hope all of you understand. Thank you GK and L & M from Albuquerque.