Long weekend getaway

After a hectic last few months, we finally got a chance to take a long weekend and head back out to SE Utah to get away from everything and soak up some solitude and enjoy some peace and quiet poking around the rock canyons and discovering some new 1000-year-old ruins, making some photographic recordings of the sites as well as trying to make some more creative images along the way. Comments of CC are always welcome.

[ATTACH alt="I call this one "tucked in" "]2929392[/ATTACH]
I call this one "tucked in"




The five faces. There are a half dozen metates on the rocks at their feet where Indians ground their corn. So many metates indicate this was probably a communal work area, they had quite a nice view while working and had the five faces keeping watch over them.




Monuments of the valley




Some extensive ruins just a twenty-minute walk from the road, the site boasts multiple kivas but this image I like better because it puts the viewer more in the scene and gives a sense of place




These ruins are in such good condition due to #1 they are about 20 feet off the canyon floor which keeps people out of them and secondly because they are so sheltered. The ruins take their name from the target you can just barely glimpse on the side of the structure with the roof on it on the left. Quire remarkable to see a structure with a roof so perfectly intact.




This two-story tower house is in excellent condition one of the best I've stumbled across, the round structure on the right is a granary for storing corn. The rock wall between them was covered with rock art




The tower house again from inside the rock alcove adjacent to it that holds the ruins of a kiva




The 'cap rock granary', a granary tucked under or 'capped' by a giant mushroom like rock. This was a personal victory for me, it's taken me 9 months and two trips to finally find it, its not located on any maps and nobody gives out the location.



[ATTACH alt="This was my reward from the last trip looking unsuccessfully for the Cap Rock Granary, I came across this granary which I name "The pristine Granary" as it's absolutely perfect, totally untouched and looks like it was built yesterday instead of 700 years ago. This ruin turned out to be only 3 to 4 minutes away from the Cap Rock Granary, but the Cap Rock Granary is located in such a way you could be 20 feet away and walk right by it."]2929417[/ATTACH]
This was my reward from the last trip looking unsuccessfully for the Cap Rock Granary, I came across this granary which I name "The pristine Granary" as it's absolutely perfect, totally untouched and looks like it was built yesterday instead of 700 years ago. This ruin turned out to be only 3 to 4 minutes away from the Cap Rock Granary, but the Cap Rock Granary is located in such a way you could be 20 feet away and walk right by it.




The same day I discovered the location of the Cap Rock Granary we were rewarded with this spectacular colored sunset. It was as if God said, good job, here's your reward.




We stumbled across this 'neighorhood' of homes built into the base of this 500ft butte.




This is no distortion of the camera, the land is truly bent as it appears. It's called an anticline, a geological formation that are usually rich in minerals and petroleum, with from what I have been told, about 80% of the world's petroleum is found within anticlines.




A new house nearing completion built into a cavity blasted out of the rock.





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Thanks,
Mike

Great report and wonderful images!

I enjoyed the narration. Hopefully, you didn't see much graffiti (or any at all).

Everything is pretty much graffiti free, you're so far off the beaten track from most people in this area and it's not gotten the death sentence of being Instagrammed. Some of the places I showed in these pictures is either very hard to access for the average person, or totally kept secret from the general public.

Some graffiti you will find though very rarely is from the 1800s from settlers and cowboys.

Look to the left for Gay Whipple from 1884...



Cowboy bullet holes...



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Thanks,
Mike
https://www.instagram.com/mikefinleyco/

Very nice series Mike with the "modern" cave dwellers the icing on the cake. How close were all these ruins? Were you on Cedar Mesa or east of that. Your setup (camera and lens/es) and you did a very good job in presenting intersting, well-composed and detailed (sharp) images.

Rick

Oh man, looks like Gay and his buddies were using the pictographs for target practice. Glad they didn't have spray paint!

Mike, I loved # 1 (favorite) and # 4, 6 and the sunset photo. Very nice set.

Where in Utah were you?

Kent

rick decker said:

Very nice series Mike with the "modern" cave dwellers the icing on the cake. How close were all these ruins? Were you on Cedar Mesa or east of that. Your setup (camera and lens/es) and you did a very good job in presenting intersting, well-composed and detailed (sharp) images.

Rick

Click to expand...

Thanks Rick. These are spread out around Cedar Mesa (Blanding/Bluff area) and south of Moab. The anticline is 5 miles from Moab as the crow flies, but 1.5 hours of vehicle travel away. At the anticline you are basically facing the famous overlooks of Deadhorse State Park and Canyonlands Island in the sky district.

Here is one near house on fire that has an Anasazi smiley face. I don't think it is that wel-known. I have a friend who was manager of the Manti-La Sal support services and he did not know of it. It is before House on 95 and on the opposite side in a reltively small side canyon. I forget the name of the main canyon. There is a grainery across from it on the other wall.

BTW have tiy been to Nevill's Arch?









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You have my express consent to edit any of my images that I post on DPR. If you want to edit an image that does not belong to me that I have edited and posted, you need to contact the owner.
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rick decker said:

Here is one near house on fire that has an Anasazi smiley face. I don't think it is that wel-known. I have a friend who was manager of the Manti-La Sal support services and he did not know of it. It is before House on 95 and on the opposite side in a reltively small side canyon. I forget the name of the main canyon. There is a grainery across from it on the other wall.

BTW have tiy been to Nevill's Arch?

Click to expand...

That is in what is called 'Cave Towers', or aka Mule Canyon Cave Towers, and also known as 3 or 4 other names. The rim of the canyon has 7 towers in different states of decay and Cave Canyon below the rim is chock full of ruins on the walls, dozens of them, most people see them from the rim with binoculars. That smiley face would be classified as a "shield style petroglyph" if you look at it closely you can see the abstract geometric figures at the top of the shield. It's pretty cool though, definitely looks like a smiley face.







Whoever is in your photo was quite daring, that woman standing on that rock ledge has some real balls, that exposure below her is scary, one slip, one rock crumble and she is gone. And she is doing that in sandals!



I have not been to Nevil's arch in Owl creek canyon. It's about a 10 miler so I have to pick my battles as the wife, my hiking partner's sweet spot is that 3-5 mile hike.

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Thanks,
Mike
https://www.instagram.com/mikefinleyco/

mfinley said:

After a hectic last few months, we finally got a chance to take a long weekend and head back out to SE Utah to get away from everything and soak up some solitude and enjoy some peace and quiet poking around the rock canyons and discovering some new 1000-year-old ruins, making some photographic recordings of the sites as well as trying to make some more creative images along the way. Comments of CC are always welcome.


Monuments of the valley


We stumbled across this 'neighorhood' of homes built into the base of this 500ft butte.


This is no distortion of the camera, the land is truly bent as it appears. It's called an anticline, a geological formation that are usually rich in minerals and petroleum, with from what I have been told, about 80% of the world's petroleum is found within anticlines.

Click to expand...

Beautiful images Mike. I particularly like the ones above, I find both the composition and the subject matter captivating.

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Great ànd interesting shots, enhanced by your commentary - thank you!

Wow...just wow!!! I'm glad you got away for a bit because you always bring back some wonderful images! That lens/camera really does a great job in your capable hands. Sometimes super-wide is the only way to capture the scale and breadth of that area. That sunset image is really the topping on what looks like a great trip. I hope you can get back that way a few more times this winter.

Al

jaggedhorizon said:

mfinley said:

After a hectic last few months, we finally got a chance to take a long weekend and head back out to SE Utah to get away from everything and soak up some solitude and enjoy some peace and quiet poking around the rock canyons and discovering some new 1000-year-old ruins, making some photographic recordings of the sites as well as trying to make some more creative images along the way. Comments of CC are always welcome.


Monuments of the valley


We stumbled across this 'neighorhood' of homes built into the base of this 500ft butte.


This is no distortion of the camera, the land is truly bent as it appears. It's called an anticline, a geological formation that are usually rich in minerals and petroleum, with from what I have been told, about 80% of the world's petroleum is found within anticlines.

Click to expand...

Beautiful images Mike. I particularly like the ones above, I find both the composition and the subject matter captivating.

Click to expand...

Appreciate the looks and comments, coming from you that means a lot.

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Thanks,
Mike

strawbale said:

Great ànd interesting shots, enhanced by your commentary - thank you!

Click to expand...

Appreciate it, thanks for looking!

Blind Bill said:

Wow...just wow!!! I'm glad you got away for a bit because you always bring back some wonderful images! That lens/camera really does a great job in your capable hands. Sometimes super-wide is the only way to capture the scale and breadth of that area. That sunset image is really the topping on what looks like a great trip. I hope you can get back that way a few more times this winter.

Al

Click to expand...

Appreciate the comments.

This was the first set of images I have edited in lightroom after they updated with the new masking feature, it's really a powerful addition and a great benefit working with the limitations of the dynamic range of the m43 camera system.

Gotta admit you been making me jealous of the variety of images you have been posting lately, been giving me inspiration.

I'm not sure if we will make another trip out this year, I went out there in Dec last year and boy it really was getting dangerous and sketchy due to the snow on the rocks in the shadow areas of the canyons I like to prowl and hike in. One slip and.... it's goodbye.

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Thanks,
Mike
https://www.instagram.com/mikefinleyco/

Nice set