Keg Point

February 22, 2025

I returned to Keg Point to finish exploring an area I initially got chased away from by a thunderstorm 12 years earlier. I wanted to poke around all the cliffs and ledges on the west side of Keg Point between the top of the main ridge and the rim of the canyon. This time the weather forecast was clear and I didn’t have any dogs with me. I left home early on Saturday morning and arrived at the Colonnade Arch trailhead at around 8:00 AM, and followed the old road for a bit before veering northwest and dropping down into the slickrock domes.

Passing this sign again for the third time in two months

Leaving the Colonnade Arch trailhead

Old road

Dropping down among some sandstone domes

Rabbit potty

Henry Mountains

Between the domes

At the head of a side canyon there was one cliff band I wasn’t able to climb down to easily but I got a good enough vantage point from above that I didn’t think I was missing anything down there. The next overhanging cliff didn’t have anything interesting either, but the third area I checked out had a promising alcove. I wasn’t comfortable with making the climb into it, however, but I could see well enough from below that I knew I wasn’t missing any writings on the alcove walls.

Side canyon of Keg Spring Canyon

Approaching some overhangs

Nothin’ here

Alcoves in the distance

Ridge below

Book Cliffs and the San Rafael Desert

View from a shallow overhang

Alcove that I couldn’t climb into

Next I hiked out onto a long ridge that extended into Keg Spring Canyon. At the end of the ridge I was hoping to get good views into the canyon bottom but I was too far back to see anything other than over the top of the canyon.

Approaching the ridge

A small climb

On top of the ridge

Water tank on the other side of Keg Spring Canyon

View along the ridge

View up Keg Spring

View down Keg Spring

On top of the ridge

As I turned around and headed back up the ridge I noticed two alcoves that were right around the corner from the one I couldn’t climb into earlier, but they weren’t visible from that first alcove and so I ended up having to climb back up that slickrock hill to get a close look. Inside were a couple of cist granaries and some metate fragments. The view was very nice from there and I enjoyed it while I sat on a ledge at the mouth of the alcove and ate lunch.

Alcoves that I missed (left)

Alcoves

Inside the larger alcove

Juniper branches and a 2×2

Storage cist

View out of the alcove

After lunch I hiked back to the rim above another side canyon, and checked out some more cliff lines, but didn’t find anything noteworthy. I’d explored all the spots I wanted to so I took a more direct route back to the truck which ended up following an old bulldozer track most of the way. This turned out to be the longest hike I’ve done in many years and I still felt full of energy on the last leg of the hike. I’m slowly building up to be able to do really long hikes and backpacking trips and it was satisfying to actually feel progress toward my goal. I got back to the truck and drove to Big Pond to camp for the night because I had another hike planned for the next day.

Another side canyon