House on Fire and Hovenweep

Almost too much beauty – all in the same day!  Thank goodness photographs allow one to take in the scenes at a leisurely pace again and again. The little house and granary on the blog header was perched on the side of a canyon, protected by a large slanted, smooth rock porch.

We slogged through the sand at the bottom of the canyon to get to the house – thank goodness for hiking poles for getting out of the canyon. (I never thought I’d enjoy them, but I’ve totally changed my mind.) The day topped out around 100° later in the day.

We drove the truck over a rock road very similar to what you see in the bottom of the photo above; scraped bottom once I think. The hiking was pretty tough, so we didn’t venture down the canyon very far past where the truck was parked.

“Hovenweep Castle” (click link for more details about Hovenweep) is perched on the top of the canyon. There are two story houses, round buildings, windows and spirits.

Looking east toward ‘the Sleeping Ute’.

Looking down into the canyon from the edge  – a kiln? There were structures all along the rim of the canyon.

The Sleeping Ute Mountain lies over the border in Colorado. The skies certainly smiled on Utah while we were there.