September 20, 2026
This was a quick and pretty uneventful trip. I’d taken Friday off work and hadn’t done much with my long weekend, so when Sunday rolled around I decided to at least do something but didn’t want to put much effort into planning a trip or driving very far, so Nine Mile Canyon it is! 😀 My primary objective was to hike up a ridge to what I thought might be a structure I spotted in Google Earth. The odd thing about this possible structure is that it’s clearly visible in the imagery from 2019 and 2023, but although the imagery from 2006 and 2013 is quite clear, it’s not at all visible in those. My thoughts were that either somebody built the structure sometime after 2013, or it was just a recent rockfall that happened to look like a structure. There was rain in the days before and most of the drainage dips in the road were covered in flood debris, but they were easily passable by most vehicles. I parked alongside the paved road at about sunrise and set off to the south in search of a place to cross the creek. I found an easy spot to jump across, and thankfully the creek wasn’t still flowing higher due to the earlier rains. I followed an old road cut for a ways, then climbed up a steep cut over a natural gas pipeline, and finally picked up a cow/game trail. I passed through a gate in a fence, dropped briefly into a canyon bottom, then made a steep climb out the other side of the canyon onto the ridge I wanted to ascend.
The rest of the way up the ridge I followed game trails or no trail at all. At times the vegetation was fairly open and others it was dense and difficult to move through.
I arrived at the location and found that what I’d seen in the satellite imagery was indeed a structure. There was no modern trash around to give any clues as to its purpose, though I did see an older (almost certainly predating the 2013 or later construction date) aluminum can wedged into a crack nearby. My only guess is that a hunter set it up as a shelter or blind. Having seen what I came to see, I turned around and descended the ridge. I got off course once and really had to work through some thick brush to get back to my ascent route, but for the most part it went quickly and smoothly. The hike had been only three miles with 1,300′ elevation gain.
Back at the truck I ate and drank something and then planned what to do next. I’d read about a granary whose location was described in a book and decided to try finding it. After driving about 15 minutes and nearing the location I realized something: I’d already seen this granary! The book didn’t say which side of the canyon (north or south) it was on, and I just assumed it was on the north side because it referenced the distance from the mouth of a major canyon on that same side. Since it requires crossing the creek and some private property, I’ve never seen the granary up close, but it’s completely inaccessible without climbing or rappelling anyway. Now I had to decide what else to do next.
I settled on just hiking up a small unnamed side canyon that interested me. Right near the mouth were some cliffs with a couple of petroglyphs, which would be the only rock art I saw the entire trip. I tried locating what looked in the sat imagery like a trail climbing out one side of the canyon but there was definitely no trail. I scrambled around some steep hillsides and gained a couple hundred feet without seeing any signs of one. Back in the canyon’s bottom I walked up the watercouse. At a fork I turned right and had to climb around several dryfalls. At a seep the vegetation was so thick I couldn’t stay in the watercourse and had to climb a slick muddy hill out one side, grasping at the brush and pulling myself up with my arms because my shoes couldn’t gain much traction. Eventually it got too rough for my liking and I decided to head back down. I got back to the road and decided I’d had my fill and so I drove back home. It wasn’t a terribly interesting trip but it was better than wasting another day at home doing nothing.
Photo Gallery: Nothin’ Much in Nine Mile