Sand Canyon Trail

Sand Canyon Trail was 6.5 miles from the southern trailhead up to Sand Canyon Pueblo and the northern trailhead.  It ascends over 1400 feet, with one 1/2 mile section ascending 700 feet over 30 switchbacks.  Max, Mark and myself decided to hike it one day.  Mark only hiked up, but Max and I hiked both up and back.  With all our side trips, we figured we hiked 15 miles that day.  And yes, my feet were sore.

Here we are not too far from the beginning of the trail and we find our first ruins.  The map only showed two sets of ruins, but we found there were many, many more along the way.

The trail was marked with signs which said 'spur'.  Of course we had to check them all out.  This was one of the smaller ruins we found.  Most of them did not allow you to climb this close.

This is Saddlehorn Pueblo.

Sunny Alcove Pueblo.

Standing Curved Wall Pueblo.  All of the pueblos and cliff dwellings here have not been reconstructed.  Because they are out of the direct sunlight, rain and wind, they have been much better preserved than those ruins on top of the mesa.

Here we are at the start of the 700 foot climb to the top.

We made it.

Yes, I really did climb up out of that valley.

Sand Canyon Pueblo was another mesa top pueblo which is not much more than a pile of rubble today.

We wondered what made the unusual markings on this rock.  We decided it looked like chicken scratching.

This is Double Cliff House, and we spotted it across the valley on the other side.  Brad and Karla, who we met at the Yellowjacket Ruins hike, started at the top and hiked down, crossing the valley over to these ruins, then back again and on down to the bottom.