We previously explored the northern reaches of Butler Wash, and then also explored this southern area near the Valley of the Gods. Access was a bit rough on a poorly maintained gravel based, snow covered road that had only been traveled by one set of tracks before ours. We got as far up along the eastern side of the wash as the Jeep would take us, and then set out to find this great set of Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) ruins.
Since there were no trails, signs, or guides to these ruins, we only had a vague description and high level map to go on. This led to a trudge up the entire length of one canyon, all to find no ruins at all. We climbed up onto the top of the surrounding ridge line and looked down to see the ruins at the bottom of the next canyon over to the north. Walking back down the ridge to lower elevations, we started up that canyon. Or at least we thought. Amazingly, we missed a fork in the canyon hidden in the bushes and went up the entire length of the canyon’s other fork to its end, again finding no ruins and realizing that it didn’t look like what we had seen from the ridge anyhow. So we then backtracked down the south ridge and found the correct canyon, sandwiched between the two other canyons we had traversed!
The Anasazi ruins in Butler Wash were really special. They were relatively undisturbed, with nearly thousand year old corn cobs, pottery sherds, chipped rocks, painted and etched petroglyphs, and of course the ruins themselves.
Further along the canyon was a huge sandstone cave, arched over the canyon bottom and undercut by millenia of occasional floods. See further below for an interactive 360 degree panorama of the cave.
A log that was used to form the structure of an Anasazi building, still supported on the ends by stacked rocks and mortar
Ancestral Puebloan granary that used the canyon cliff face as both wall and support. Notice the natural pigment painted hands on the rock above, and some etched petroglyphs on the left.
Anasazi ruins built under the protective canyon wall, with scattered and buried building remnants
Ancestral Puebloan sweat lodge
After hiking past the Ancestral Puebloan / Anasazi ruins in Butler Wash, we came upon a massive cave that had been undercut by occasional floods and water running down the canyon. The Anasazi very likely spent considerable time under this huge protective overhang, but because of the occasional floods that washed over its floor they didn’t build there and any daily remnants had been washed away.