With a 50% chance of rain in the weather forecast I decided on a close-to-home, paved-road-access hike on Friday. I still have two mountain hikes I’d really like to do before the end of the season but neither one was doable this weekend so I ended up in Nine Mile Canyon. Sky House is a pair of habitation sites, upper and lower, along a ridgetop that’s now bisected by a natural gas pipeline. I didn’t really know what was left up there as far as structures, because archaeologists have excavated the sites, but a few years earlier I’d spotted some good petroglyphs along the ridge from the road so I decided to get a closer look. Despite there being an access road up to where the ridge was notched out for the pipeline, it still wasn’t easy getting to the very top of the ridge and I had to scramble to gain the top.
Morning clouds
Upper Sky House
Two-track road
Pipeline cut through the ridge
Morning light, Lower Sky House on the left
Road cut into the ridge
View through the pipeline cut
Pipeline
View up Nine Mile
Lower Sky House ridge
I arrived at the lower Sky House butte and walked all around the base looking for the best way up, seeing a few petroglyphs on the cliffs below the butte. There were two rocky chutes that led up to a crack that could be used to access the top. The first one I tried was too difficult for me but the second one got me almost to the top. There was just too big of a step up with no good handholds to get me up the final climb. I spotted an arrowhead in the rocky chute, only the second one I’ve ever seen in the Nine Mile area. I walked farther down the ridge, past a pit house, to the private property boundary before turning around and going back up the ridge.
Below the access crack
Cow crap overhang
Blocked off access
Long wavy line
The climb up
Projectile point
Final climb to the top
Upper Sky House
General prohibition sign
Pit house
Rock pillar
Corral along Nine Mile Creek
Cairn at private property line
View up the Sky House ridge
I scrambled back down to the pipeline notch in the ridge and skirted along one side of the cliffs below the ridge on the way to upper Sky House. When that cliff band ended I crossed over to the other side of the ridge and looked at some of the petroglyphs I’d seen from far below years earlier. I hadn’t recently referred to the photos I’d taken back then and couldn’t remember what the rock art looked like, but it didn’t seem as good as I was expecting. After returning home from this trip I realized there was a really nice petroglyph panel high above me that wasn’t visible from the base of the cliffs and could only be accessed from the top.
Skirting around the cliffs
Dead, twisted pine
Game trail
Cliffs below the ridgetop
CH8, VR
Petroglyph panel
I took a snack break and then followed the base of the cliff back to the other side of the ridge where I expected to be able to hike to the top of the ridge and upper Sky House. Instead I encountered a steep and loose slope that I wasn’t comfortable crossing. It was only a 15 or 20 foot stretch that gave me pause, and I even tried digging out some footholds with a rock, but the surface was too hard to dig into. With no handholds, and a layer of loose crumbly rock on the ground, my feet kept sliding downward toward a steep chute with no chance of arresting a fall. I decided to give up and try one my backup plans.
Steep and loose slope
Steep chute
Plan B was to hike up a ridge on one side of the mouth of an unnamed side canyon off Nine Mile. About eight years earlier I had seen a photo online of a spiral snake petroglyph on this ridge, and the background scenery made it very obvious where the photo was taken. It’s been on my to-do list since then but I hadn’t felt like looking for it in all my trips since then. I scrambled up the ridge and almost immediately found the petroglyph. The cliff band just above the glyph had a really great panel on it as well. I spent the next couple of hours ascending the ridge, following the bottom of each cliff band until it ended, then climbing up to the next and repeating the process. There was a lot of good rock art along the way.
Plan B ridge
View up an unnamed side canyon
Following the cliffline
Sheep and spiral snake
Very cool panel
Climbing higher on the ridgeline
More cliff bands
Bear prints
When I’d finally gotten my fill and decided to head back down, I first scanned the next couple of cliff bands above me and saw yet more rock art. I marked a waypoint in my GPS and took a couple of reference photos so I could return another day and pick up where I left off. I guess this ridge may remain on my to-do list for a while yet. I’d gone so far to one side of the crest of the ridge that I realized it would be easier to descend a different direction, and I remembered that on a previous hike I had climbed up to a ruin somewhere below me. I started down the hill and easily found the ruin, then went a little farther out of my way to locate where I thought I had climbed up on that previous trip. I found that spot as well and could finally see the road, and began climbing down. I was scrambling down some ledges and over boulders, and had one earbud in listening to music, when I thought I heard a rattlesnake! I froze, not being able to tell which direction the sound was coming from. After a few seconds of not knowing whether to stay still or get the fuck out of there, I removed the earbud just as the noise stopped. So now I didn’t know whether I should continue down or if that’s where the snake was. I spent a couple of minutes breaking little twigs off a tree that was within reach and tossing them down into the rocks all around me but the sound never repeated. I took several large and careful steps to get as far down from that spot as I could until I felt like I was safe again. Then I finished the quick descent to the road, still shaking a little bit but not knowing for certain whether there ever really was a snake. That chance of precipitation did materialize on the drive home but I left the truck window down so I could inhale the cool scent of sagebrush and rain.
Lookout ruin
Three of four horned figures
Photo Gallery: Sky House and Plan B Ridge