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| Slickhorn Canyon Complex, UT | |
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| | Slickhorn Canyon Complex, UT | | | |
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Slickhorn Canyon Complex, UT
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| no partners | | Arriving later than I like starting a backpacking trip; I decided to dayhike a fork of Slickhorn canyon to a ruin complex I had read about on a ledge almost to the confluence. The approaching low front was stirring the weather up. I threw some raingear in my daypack and took off from the TH of which I was the only one parked and no typical TH markings; I just followed some directions I obtained.
Slickhorn and it's tributaries are like Grand Gulch as it is a large canyon system on the Cedar Mesa terminating at the San Juan river. It's usually a lot rougher hiking than Grand Gulch, and has some ruins though not as many and not as accessible. This canyon was mellow by these standards, with a good use trail. Ten minutes in some graineries in good shape, a few poor pictographs. The canyon was all slickrock and started to deepen, a few seep areas added some green and a little water in small pools. A larger drop off I took an off trail route down. Soon I started scanning the walls and saw the long ledge ruins above another pour off. A break in the cliff allowed some easy scrambling with minimal exposure. It was windy with a little rain starting but not enough to break out gear. The ledge had some twenty plus ruins spread out along it. Most were in bad shape but some were nice and use of a lot of reeds and mud pack versus rock stacking a couple of places. An unusual design on a pottery shard. As the ledge ran out there was some steep exposure so I contented myself with a telephoto of the wonderful grainery situated there. The weather was looking grimmer and I decided not to search more but return to the Toyota. Broiling clouds and wind as I got to the car. I found a slickrock car camp site just as the skies decided to open up and quite the impressive lightning show over the Abajos. I was sleeping in the car so didn't care what it did. Next day up and early to the Kane Gulch Ranger station to find it closed; so I paid up and gave myself my own backpacking permit for four days---- |
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