Bears Backbone

Bears Ears National Monument

Click for map.

It may be called Comb Ridge now, but I heard a rumor that there are bear bits all over and this is the Bear's Backbone. An article from a Salt Lake paper from when it became a monument calls it nature's backbone. Whatever, I can see the vertebrae easily and not so much the teeth of a comb. There's even redder cartilage between the white bone peaks. Today's plan is simply to wander around those bones ending up at something marked on the map. No driving, just set out from camp and see what there is to see. I picked out a canyon to start with a bit north of camp simply because it has a vast overhang. For ruins, it's probably just a bit too obvious and won't have any. But it feels so attractive, I must go and see.

That overhang out there is my target. There are heavily used trails crossing the wash near the tree with parking in the turnout and along a short road just past that.

The canyon is a bit to the north, but I cross at a well used crossing beside a tree. Trails go generally directly up and a little to the south, but some lesser trails go north. Either way, I get out onto the rocks where there's pretty free movement north and south along a section where the canyons cutting into the wash tend to be very shallow. There also seem to be cow trails through the sage brush lower down. Diagonally toward the overhang seems the most reasonable although I know the lower section of canyons sometimes have ruins, too, because I've seen them there on other canyons.

One canyon's exit from the rocks toward the tree lined wash.

There is little vegetation on the rock slabs at this level. Above, there seems to be even more to explore.

A canyon crossed without much drop.

Since I have gone diagonally, I'm no longer at the easier entry point for the canyon when I get to it. Instead, there is a steep and broken rock a long way down into it. There does seem to be a couple routes, but once I'm tumbling down one of them, I think there's not much to recommend it. Some parts are a little too steep, some a little too precarious. Only a few rocks have moved under me in unpleasant ways by the time I have landed in the stream bed below.

It is still nice and shady under that overhang although it isn't still getting up into the mid 80s to make that sort of shelter desirable.

There was definitely nothing of a ruin bent under the overhang visible from above when it was all very much laid out for me. From below, anything could be going on up there.

I expect a south side ledge like this would be attractive for outdoor living during the summer months.

Another overhang further up may be too small to look grand from a distance, but might hold something.

The canyons down here are shorter than the ones to the north and it isn't all that long before I am coming out into the cartilage and thinking about how to get past the vertebra to wander down the next canyon.

Getting to toward the top, the canyon is a wide arrangement of slabs with steep edges that are getting shorter.

Back down the canyon of the large overhangs.

That shear drop from the other vertebrae to the north is becoming visible.

I make my way up along a layer until there is a break I can use to get to the next. Ever upward until there is finally a way around into the top areas. No one has gone and added the peaks around here on Peakbagger, so I can more easily leave those tops alone. (Of course, I could "fix" that, but I won't in this case.) Instead, I stick to the lower sections where there are hills and gardens.

Where options narrow and there is dirt to show it, there are trails.

A garden of juniper and sage around the top.

Arrived at the top of another canyon to explore.

Getting across the top, the wander through the layers is repeated in reverse. I follow along one until I can move to the next with a particularly layer as my interim goal. That one being the one that seems to connect to itself and thus really starts the canyon down. The north edge seems easier with wider rocks and smoother sidewalks and fewer layers to traverse.

Layers of rocks to find a way down from the white bones to the red cartilage.

Somehow although traversing the top is more difficult, it is going down the canyon that causes me the most worry. It is simply that maybe there is a sudden drop with no way around it. I shouldn't even be concerned along here since I could just turn and continue on to another canyon, but I still get more confident as the canyon develops a trail from the other visitors.

A side canyon that could be worth exploring. So I did.

A side canyon catches my attention. It's only a little way, so I go up and look. It, too, rises to a top and then there is more canyon heading down the other side. Also some footprints but not much trail. Since I'm working my way south, I backtrack and head out the canyon I started in.

Instead of climbing to the edge, this side canyon just climbs to a wall.

Climbed up the side canyon and it has a second canyon to empty some of its water down.

Narrow and shallow canyon to explore now.

Once out the bottom, it is time for another pair of canyons, so back out across the rocks. Now they seem to be trying to gather smaller rocks and dirt across the barren flats.

The rocks have found little friends that are helping the colonizing plants and fungus.

The last canyon from here looks like a cut through the rock. The side canyon is the large arc to the right.

This canyon is one of the ones the people parking below have been going for, so there's plenty of trail in it along with plenty of footprints. Both dissipate a bit as I go up.

Trail to lead into the canyon.

This canyon is all curves.

I tend to the right to be climbing for the top but once climbed, it looks like I may have overdone it and could have stayed low on this one.

So many canyons out there on Cedar Mesa as viewed through the low spot at the top of the canyon.

At the top with gentle dips and a lot of juniper and sage.

Or maybe I didn't go up far enough as I follow a small wash down the top. The lines on the map have me worried about if I go directly to the canyon, so I make my way down the dip at the top to an entry point that looks safer. There always seems to be another spot to poke around along the way.

Flow like water down the rocks.

The possible paths are endless.

Once in the canyon again, I head up. There's not so much evidence of people, but one left a mark in 1929. The survey markers are from all different eras around here.

Quarter section corner from 1929. This one is not shown on the USGS map, but there should be a corner a half mile west by it.

There is a lot of cliff by the spot I was wary of, but there is also a slide that looks like I could walk it. It's all quite random.

I didn't want to go down the wall, but the ramp might work. This vantage point may be missing a drop right at the end.

It's getting late and I meant to be going up the next canyon which would put me going down the one I plan to be my final canyon. This is one with a long arm swinging out to Butler Wash for the crossing and return whereas most look like they'll sort of drop when they get to the wash. I head up the side while the canyon will let me and over the top to the next one south.

Missing the upper section of the canyon.

The views across Butler Wash are changing too.

The new canyon is shallow and open.

So I go up this one last canyon, at least a little bit. There aren't really trails here, but there are footsteps.

There is still the room for water to create an overhang.

One last up.

The character of the shapes of the rocks is changing as I go south. Variations on a theme, certainly, but distinct variations. Are the rocks harder? It comes down to the shorter canyons? Just blind luck with where the raindrops fell? I round the top to the final canyon.

The ridge to the edge on the right and more rocks on the left. Keep off the grass. There's a perfectly fine ribbon of rock to follow.

A touch of fall right at the top.

Just pausing to note the path of a root.

Just tumbling down with the water once again, now over sand clean of footprints.

Then I start to wonder if maybe this one might end in a waterfall too. Maybe there won't be a way down and across. But then I can just trot back up along the lower rocks to the original crossing, although I'll try a little lower first.

A moment when this canyon is a curve.

Nearing the end of a simple canyon.

The drop off at the end of the canyon into Butler Wash.

It is a waterfall. Well, it would be. Give it a few days, the tiny clouds have ripples in them. That's supposed to mean storm, except that there's so little of it.

It looks quite formidable upstream, although there is that dirt level.

Still formidable downstream, although there is reason to believe there will be trail that way.

I head downstream along the top of the cliffs to where I think there should be a trail. There is and it comes halfway up this side of the cliff. Which is just short of where I am. There's people on it and since they have the better vantage point to the cliff, I go ahead and ask them. They point to a best case scenario and their eyesight is good. It is a way down to their level. I get to explore what they are exploring.

The canyon further down. It is choked with willow and tamarisk, each relegated to its own section. The willow is easier to get past.

And once I find the trail up, I can get back to the road and my camp. It takes a bit of doing and a bit of faith, but there are some cairns to help.

The backbone lit by the late sun.

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Along the way...

I believe this is adobe construction and I might have missed a few things thinking they were only mud. These are next to a rock building.

Now that's tucked away tightly.

This is a small character detail of a much larger petroglyph. I haven't seen features as large as the ones on either side of it.

*photo album*




©2019 Valerie Norton
Written 24 Nov 2019