Mule Canyon roadside ruin

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Bears Ears National Monument



Click for map.

The Mule Canyon roadside ruin is not actually within the canyon, but on the flat land above. It is another of these developed areas with bathrooms and interpretive signs that are free and will continue to be free. The ruin has been excavated and studied and stabilized. Two signs explain about "Anasazi" history in general and these ruins in particular. (One usually refers to Ancestral Puebloans now as Anasazi is a Navajo (or Diné) word referring to someone else and as with most such words has a connotation of alien/other/not-human to it. My professor for a survey course of Native American religions went with the translation "enemy's ancestors". I had always thought that it was a lovely word without context.) To get there, one just proceeds down the paved path. To get the information in the reasonable order, circle to the right. Me, I circle to the left because my Indian friends (you know, from India) said it is bad luck to circle a temple counter-clockwise and there is usually a kiva as part of these ruins and I don't know any other reason to go one way or the other.

low walls in a grid
What is left of a grid of 12 rooms that are thought to have housed about 3 family groups including storage spaces.

round hole in the ground
The structure protected by the roof is the kiva. Another earthen kiva is shown on the map but was not reconstructed. It would have been in the left of this photo behind the excavated kiva.


round of rocks
The tower is an object of mystery, but is expected to have been two stories high when in use and had a tunnel to connect it to the kiva suggesting at least some ceremonial purposes.

inside the kiva
The tunnel from the tower is partly blocked with an air shield. The tunnels were not excavated.

entry, perhaps
Rooms would have been entered through small doorways or a hole in the roof.

The signs tell about diet and farming, so extend much further than the buildings themselves in their information content. But once I am done with them, I can continue on to the ranger station to find the ranger doesn't think I really need to use her phone to call the folks who might have my lens.




©2019 Valerie Norton
Written 3 Nov 2019
location: UT-95, Utah, USA

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