Dennis

March 14, 2026

My motivation for this outing was actually centered around visiting some rock art, but while I was sort of close by I decided to bag a high point as well. And it was probably my brief visit three weeks earlier that spurred me to even consider this area for doing a couple of hikes. Flattop Mountain was the objective, a relatively easy hike of six miles and 1,000′ elevation gain. I got started shortly after official sunrise but I would remain in the shadow of the mountain for the entire ascent until reaching the top of the mesa. I followed a route similar to that of other hikers on Peakbagger.com, ascending an easy ridge on the mountain’s west side. But where most of them scrambled through the upper cliff band, one user posted a GPS track that follows a faint dirt bike trail farther south, so I detoured that direction and had an easier climb.

Leaving the truck

The ascent ridge (left) and Flattop Mountain

View toward the Book Cliffs

Strange holes in the ground

Lucky Flats

Rocky route up

Steep loose slope below a cliff band

Sort of a trail

Shadow of Flattop Mountain

Steep dirt bike trail

Flat spot below the mesa

Trail between boulders

I reached the top of the mesa and emerged into the sunlight. First I hunted for and found the azimuth marker associated with the benchmark at the high point, and then made my way to the high point about 1,000′ away. Much of the original wooden survey tower from 1937 was there but in pieces. I saw some old, disintegrated batteries but there’s no way of knowing whether they’re associated with the original survey crew or were left there later.

Upper Humbug Wash

Flattop BM azimuth marker

Broken survey tower

Survey tower

Old disintegrated batteries

Flattop survey marker from 1937

Next I set off across the flat mesa toward its southeastern point about half a mile away, just to get a different view. Along the way I spotted a few lithic flakes and even found a broken arrowhead. There were also a sparse couple of rusty cans and pieces of lumber but nothing that looked like anyone had spent considerable time up there. I then turned northwest to get a look off the northern point.

Broken arrowhead

Walking across the flat top of Flattop

View from the southeastern point

The head of Stove Gulch

Route to the northern point

Near the northern point I looked for the other benchmark shown on the USGS topo. Unlike the one at the high point which is listed on the NGS website, I couldn’t find any information online about this survey marker. I was expecting another standard brass marker but all I could locate was a huge cairn and a still-standing survey tower. There was a summit register at the base of the survey tower which only had two signatures in it: one by the person who placed it a year earlier, and another from somebody I follow on Instagram who had been there only two weeks before me.

Old fire remains

Huge cairn at BM 7,129′

2024, Luke, Danny, Cub

Survey tower

Survey tower pieces

Summit register

I dropped down off the edge of the mesa to investigate a boulder that appeared in the satellite imagery to have a rock circle on top. Sure enough, there were a couple of rock walls atop some of the boulders. I looked carefully all around and didn’t find any artifacts, but I still suspect these are prehistoric. The structures don’t seem large enough to have been functional for any practical purpose. They’re certainly uncommon throughout the entire San Rafael Swell so it was pretty neat to find them.

Roll of wire hanging from a tree

Boulders on the edge of the mesa

Rock structure

Gap between boulders

Rock structure

I crossed the mesa one last time and returned to the spot where I’d originally topped out, then followed the same route back down. I arrived at the truck around 12:30 and ate lunch before moving to my next destination.

Older footprints

View before descending

Trail down

Six miles even

I spent the rest of the afternoon checking out some Fremont pictographs. Some friends had invited me to ride dirt bikes with them to see these about 12 years ago but I had something else going on that weekend. It took this long for me to finally decide to hike in and see them for myself. Many of these pictographs, particularly the ones with orange pigment, remind me of some others only 10 miles away that I hiked to in 2022. There were also some very faded pictos that I think my friends missed on their trip. Even DStretch can barely bring out any detail so it’s difficult to determine the cultural affiliation, but I’d like to think they’re Barrier Canyon Style. There were also a couple of structures on top of a butte. I don’t think it can be climbed without technical gear and it was difficult to get a good photo from below, but there were several rock walls comprising two or three rooms. Again, it was so unusual seeing something like this so close to home, outside of the Nine Mile Canyon area. I think I definitely ought to explore the area some more.

White and red pictograph