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After our night in Comb Wash it was time to start looking around this piece of southern Utah I haven’t really spent any time in. When we started thinking about our time in the Southwest our list for New Mexico was long and the list for Utah was pretty short. A combination of lots of closures throughout New Mexico and Utah having a lot of backcountry opportunities that kept us away from crowds resulted in us spending more time in Utah than anywhere else. We started the day backtracking to see the formation Mexican Hat was named for.

We then headed toward what I thought were going to be a pair of trails, but for us ended up being more of a driving tour. We drove to the rim of the San Juan, a river we spent the night near the night before, but this was an entirely different setting as the river has carved into a deep majestic canyon.

Apparently the Honaker trail in this area takes you into the canyon and down to the river, but we didn’t ever find a trail, and honestly it took us a while to even find the correct road to get us in the area, so we enjoyed our view of the river from the rim instead.

We moved on to another vantage point, Muley Point which offered another view of the San Juan with a distant view of Monument Valley. Both Honaker and Muley looked to have great places to boondock for a day or two, but we had another spot in mind for the night.

We had our first good view of the Bears Ears from this plateau. The Bears Ears region has been the subject of a lot of news in the past few years, mainly related to its designation as a national monument, and it turned out they would be in our view for the next several days.

From the top of the Moki Dugway we could see a view of our destination for the night, Valley of the Gods. We headed back down the switchbacks and took the quick left leading us on the loop around the valley.

The sun was making a quick dash for the horizon, meaning it was already time to find a spot to set up camp and watch the last light play off the valley. We found what turned out to be my favorite site of the trip, with a grand view of the sandstone formations.

The next day we continued our wandering and exploring of this region. In a not so straight line we were bound for Natural Bridges National Monument by way of a stop for fuel and propane in Blanding. We headed there following Comb Ridge another prominent geological feature of the area.

Along the way we ran across a sign describing Fish and Owl Canyon, which turned out to be a bit of serendipity that would turn into an entire day of exploring later on. There is something about being in a new area, not knowing exactly what to expect or having much of a plan. We were mainly just consulting our map each night and picking a destination for the next day. We ended up missing a few things I only discovered with more research upon arriving home, but each day was a new discovery.

Our next stop was Butler Wash Ruins, our first cliff dwelling of the trip.

With our side trip to Blanding we had just enough time to find a place to camp so we could explore Natural Bridges the next day. The sun set cast quite a light on the Bears Ears.

We had a full day to explore Natural Bridges. It wasn’t quite deserted, but it seemed we had most of the day in the canyon to ourselves.

We spent the better part of the day hiking the canyon and enjoying the sunny fall day.

Out of the canyon we returned across the mesa, the ever present Bears Ears on the horizon.

Our time at Natural Bridges complete, we moved on the next morning, but only a few miles south, to Grand Gulch. It appears a person could spend a week hiking the gulch, but we were just dropping in for a day to have a look around. We started in from a mid-point in the canyon, at Collins. We ran across pictographs and cliff dwellings, but the blue sky and sandstone was the highlight for me. It was t shirt weather in November.

We decided we had one more day in this area of Utah, but where to spend it? We were intrigued by Fish and Owl canyons, so we headed in that direction. After a bit of research the loop trail would obviously require a multi-day backpack, so we picked an out and back down into Owl Canyon, but that would be tomorrow’s endeavor. We found a ridge top campsite to watch the sunlight fade from the sky. I believe it may have been the best sunset of the trip, but we ended up watching most of it from inside the camper, as the evening wind had quite a bite to it.

We were up and to the trailhead and headed down into Owl Canyon before the sun was too high in the sky. The description of the trail included a designation of ‘difficult’ and I would say that was an accurate description. Cairns led the way around pour offs and cliffs as we descended past a cliff dwelling and deeper into the canyon.

Owl Canyon was fascinating and beautiful. If you are up for a rugged adventure there is a lot of that here. With route finding and gawking at the scenery we reached a turnaround lunch spot at a big (dry) waterfall, and then started our way back up to the trailhead. We liked our previous night campsite so much that we were hoping to stay another night there, hoping to be able to sit out and watch another grand sunset, but it ended up being occupied. We hit the road and moved toward our destination for tomorrow.

We found ourselves back near Comb Ridge and found a campsite that someone left several rounds of wood in. We enjoyed our first big warm fire of the trip and sat out under the cottonwoods as the sun gave way to stars. Tomorrow we would head into Colorado, but find ourselves back in Utah to see one more site as we continued our tour of the Southwest.