75 and partly sunny.
We headed toward Cold Spring Ruin. All the red is a succulent plant with intertwining red stems. It helps stabilize the dirt. In it's day the whole main canyon populated by thousands of native Americans. There were villages and corn fields here. All the lumps and bumps could be ruins of walls. There are pottery shards all over. When the drought came the land could no longer support the people, so they moved on.
Of course we headed into the wrong canyon. My GPS said there was a ruin in this canyon. It was a very beautiful canyon.
Looking at clouds above the canyon wall. Desert varnish where water runs down the wall after a rain.
This whole area at one time was sand dunes. It was compressed, uplifted, tilted and then eroded. You can see the lines of cross bedding of the dunes in the canyon walls. My GPS says there is a ruin high on this canyon wall here, Not somewhere we could climb, so we didn't see it. We turned around to find the canyon we should have hiked up to see the other ruin.
Alcove with desert varnish. I just happened to glance at this canyon wall as we were hiking by and saw this large petroglyph panel. Looks like the stairway to heaven to me.
John in the convoluted wash. The canyon ahead of us.
Desert varnish and clouds. The cottonwoods are turning in this canyon.
John waiting ahead for me. Evening primrose, a small hole in the wall that looks like some one whining. Dried mud on the canyon floor.
Finally in the right canyon, John going under a cottonwood arch. Our original destination, Cold Spring Ruin. It was at the end of a wide box canyon that had a smooth stone floor.
Cold Spring Ruins.
There were a lot of metates for grinding corn in this ruin. The top one had this petroglyph on it. These petroglyph and the metates are indentations into the rock, they look to me in these photos like the come up, instead of in. The red one has lines where they sharpened their tools. The back of the alcove, behind the ruin had a spring in it. thud the name Cold Spring ruin.
More metates. The top right was on the canyon floor with a pot hole by it. The ones on the right are at the bottom of a wall. Petroglyph, More metates. The canyon wall reflected in a pothole of water.
Hand print and other pictographs. Pictographs are painted rather than pecked in to rock like petroglyphs. John behind the frame in the portrait tree.
John ahead of me on the way out of the canyon.
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