Just like this time last year, we’re having a mild winter so far and I wanted to take advantage of it before it got colder and snowier, and I went for a three day and two night hiking/camping trip. I took a few days off work and on Wednesday morning drove southeast. I planned a different variety of exploring for each day, and this day would be spent satisfying a mild curiosity about the big red buttes in Tenmile Country. I’ve seen these buttes many times from a distance, with their patina covered walls and huge boulders. I figured there had to be some rock art and inscriptions, but probably not anything really amazing or else I’d likely already know about it. The first small butte turned out to be a total bust, with nothing written on its walls and only a scattering of lithic flakes in a few places around the perimeter.
Road to the first butte
Following a fenceline
View back toward the truck
The other buttes I plan checking out later
Not much to see here
Please Close Gate sign
Unusual gate tensioner
I drove closer to the next, much larger butte and set out on foot across the slickrock and sand. I walked along the south-facing cliffs and stopped often to examine the boulders or aim my binoculars at the cliffs overhead, but didn’t see much. I rounded a corner where the cliffs begin to run SW-NE, paralleling Tenmile Wash, and there I began to see a few minor petroglyphs. I found one large inscription by someone named McCarel but with no date or first name. I hiked farther than I’d planned because the cliffs and boulders looked more promising in person than they had in Google Earth. Right about where the cliffs began to look less promising there was one last large boulder that had a couple of petroglyphs on them. To me they both resembled turtles, but I’m sure I’m just projecting based on my own experiences. From that boulder I took the most direct path back to the truck and ate a late lunch there before driving to my next stop.
Hiking to the second butte
Closed road
Hiking along the base of the butte
Fallen rock layers
Stubby
Petroglyph
E slash brand
Following the walls
Petroglyphs
Fremont’s mahonia
Boulders
Petroglyph
McCarel inscription
Rock art boulder across a steep gully
That sure looks like a turtle!
Another turtle glyph
Sydney Opera House in sandstone
Cow trail
Sandy expanse back to the truck
I parked and hiked a short distance down Tenmile Wash to see an old, collapsed cabin near Dripping Spring. There wasn’t much left to see there, but since I was close I figured I should check the place out. The lumber remaining on the ground didn’t look like enough to make up even one cabin, let alone two like most USGS topo maps of the area show. I followed the base of a cliff from the cabin to Dripping Spring and saw some carvings in the rock, but it was such a poor surface that most everything had spalled off and was illegible. The spring itself was unimpressive–it was more of a minor seep from the cliff that didn’t even reach the canyon floor. Either in the past or during certain times of year it must flow enough to have earned its place as a named spring on the USGS maps.
Tenmile Wash
Signs
Please Suspend Travel
Old mattress and chair
Collapsed cabin
Corral collapsing into a chasm
Box spring
Maybe a latrine?
Bed frame
Tenmile Wash
Indistinct name, April 12, 1940
Dripping Spring
The truck waiting
There was one more butte in the area that I’d planned on hiking around, and I had the energy for it but not the time. I didn’t want to be looking for a place to camp in the dark so instead of doing one last hike I drove to the next area and found a camp spot in Little Valley north of Arches National Park. Exploring the Tenmile area had been about what I expected–mediocre–but at least it scratched that itch that’s been nagging at me for years.
Camp in Little Valley
Sunset colors
Photo Gallery: Tenmile Country