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Show I k- : ; Entrance to Moon Room, located some 8 to 10 feet behind the fort wall at Moon House Ruin. Structural vills, Inside and out, are decorated with paintings. Canyon Country Ramblings . . . A Wisifl fl itflooEi House Men By Slim Mabery B all started when I stopped by the BLM Office Of-fice In Monticello to ob- tsln some Information pertaining per-taining to John's Canyon. Ten of us were planning in Easter vacation camp trip Into the Grand Gulch-Cedar Gulch-Cedar Mesa area to begin on March 21 and continue through the 29ttu The group would consist of Juanlta and me, and Boyd and Marie Ctoudas of Moab, Dr. and Mrs. R. Celdon Lewis of Pro yd and our daughter Debbie and three other students stu-dents from USU. A charming receptionist at the BLM Office referred refer-red me to Steven Wing, Chief Ranger in charge of management and protection of the Grand Gulch-Cedar Mesa area for assistance. In add it ton to being quite dedicated to, and enthusiastic enthus-iastic about his work, and his area, I found Steve to be very pleasant and eager eag-er to help. I explained that our Interests lay in photography, pho-tography, exploring and learning about the existence exist-ence of the early peoples who inhabited the area before be-fore the history of our nation na-tion was begun. He eagerly displayed several maps and photographs: maps, marked mark-ed up with locations of points of special interest with photographs to show what these special interest points held in store. We spent a very busy half hour transferring notes and symbols from his maps to mine. So busy, in fact, that I never did get around to asking how to get Into John's Canyon. Among the items Steve narked on my map and showed photographs of was Moon House Ruin located In a small, un-named canyon, can-yon, a tributary to Comb Wash, on the eastern edge of Cedar Mesa. He said u was one of the most Interesting ruins in the entire en-tire area. We were intrigued intrig-ued and set out to find it. ( Some eleven or twelve miles south of Highway 95 we left state Route 261 I (the Natural Brldges-Mex- lean Hat Road) and headed i east along the Old Mor-t Mor-t mon Trail. A little more i than a mile along this trail . e ran smack dooey into a bean farm and became lost. I Jeep trails went everywhere every-where and we seemed to have a good way of find-; find-; tng the wrong ones. After J few tries, however, we J found a bnished-out route 5 around the bean farm and J soon rejoined the Mormon i Trail. Some six or seven j nilles further on I recog-f. recog-f. nlzed a spot Steve had told ne to watch for. And. as j m had informed me would necessary, I got out of our vehicle and searched i out the start of a very t jeep trail that would I led us near the rim of the canyon we were looking look-ing for. We drove a little better than a mile along this trail through pinyon - Juniper forests and sagebrush flats dotted here and there with ancient fire pits and an occasional oc-casional pit house. Most of these pits had been dug Into by artifact hunters. If left undisturbed, the ashes ash-es in these pits provide another good means of dating dat-ing the origin of their use. The magnetic pull on the metallic reticles of this ash from the ever changing chang-ing magnetic poles provides provid-es this means of dating their use. If, however, the ash has been disturbed, this means of dating their origin has been destroyed. The jeep trail ended in a wash about a half mile from the canyon rim. We spread out over the slick-rock slick-rock in search of our reward re-ward and a possible route that would lead us to it. It wasn't long before Dr. Lewis called that he had located the ruin. The canyon can-yon at this point Is about 200 feet above the stream bed. We returned to our vehicles for an early lunch (about 11 a.m.) before descending des-cending Into the canyon. Most of us were so enthralled en-thralled that we could only grab a very quick snack. As we gathered again on the canyon rim we noted some 14 persons having lunch at the Moon House Ruin. As we studied them through our binoculars we determined that It must be a Boy Scout Troop with a couple of adult leaders. They were tossing tin cans and litter appeared everywhere. every-where. It was Dr. Lewis again (or Celdon, as he prefers to be called while on camp trips) and his wife Rosalie who located the faint foot trail into the canyon. As we descended the south canyon wall the Scout troop waved and shouted their greetings as they left the ruin and headed down canyon. can-yon. We wondered how much litter they had left behind and were prepared to pack out a sizeable amount. am-ount. The trail descends in a zig-zag fashion, almost straight down the canyon wall. It then heads up-canyon up-canyon and soon climbs onto on-to a wide ledge that leads around to Moon-House Ruin. Ru-in. There are several lesser les-ser ruins to explore along the way. In fact, the ledge contains at least seven separate sep-arate ruin sites and we estimated es-timated that if all were occupied oc-cupied at the same time this ledge may have housed hous-ed as many as 200 Inhabitants. Inhab-itants. Among the seven ruin sites examined we found one large Kiva; at Moon House, about midway mid-way along the ledge. Moon House Ruin is in the prettiest and most pio- Insule this room is a painting of a full moon hence the name, Moon House Ruin. turesque setting of any that we have ever seen. As you round a sharp corner and pass between two very colorful col-orful pinnacles or "sentl-nals," "sentl-nals," which are larger at their tops than at their bottoms, the ledge suddenly sudden-ly widens to about 30 feet. A third pinnacle helps form the sharp corner as it stands next to the upper cliff wall. Between the two and about ten feet above the main ledge Is a "keyhole" "key-hole" arch. In this archway arch-way are remnants of what appears to have been a two or three story dwelling. Moon House Ruin Is nestled nest-led in a 10 to 20 foot deep horizontal cave, behind these pinnacles. A fort, or protective wall, has been constructed along the deepest deep-est portion of the cave opening, op-ening, on a secondary shelf about 8 to 10 feet above the main ledge. Behind this wall are eight large rooms, Including the Moon Room. Their only means of access was through a lone window win-dow In the fort wall which leads into a 10 by 30 foot court behind the wall. Individual In-dividual doorways lead from here Into the separate separ-ate rooms. The fort wall contains some 16 port, or "peep" holes; trained on portions of the main ledge, the canyon bottom andor another dwelling site. One Is trained on the opposite canyon wall. Perhaps a game trail or the location of some other form of activity, ac-tivity, we thought. We were delighted to fine that the Boy Scout Troop had done an Immaculate job of cleaning up after themselves. Excepting for foot prints you would hardly hard-ly have known that they had been there. However, we were saddened to find a name written In Ink In three-quarter inch letters on a pictograph on one of the structures behind the fort wail. And, as if this was not bad enough, the same name had been carved carv-ed In 2-12 Inch letters into the adobe wall just below be-low the pictograph. We have later learned that this name scratching was done in the early 1920's. It makes us feel a bit better when we stop to consider that this was the only sign of disfigurement dis-figurement we noted at this magnificent ruin. It had not been put there by members of the Scout troop. Moon, House Ruin consists con-sists of some 15 large rooms in addition to those in the keyhole arch and the large kiva. Architectural Architec-tural design and construction construc-tion consists of early waddle wad-dle and daub (sticks and mud) through round masonry mason-ry rooms with stones laid in haphazard fashion, to straight walled, square cornered rooms of haphazard hap-hazard construction to planned construction where stones had been shaped and laid in interlocking fashion fash-ion with dove-tall corners. Several plctographs are found on the cliff behind the fort wall and several rooms and structural walls are decorated with paintings. paint-ings. Inside the "moon-room" "moon-room" is a very good painting paint-ing of a full moon. Hence the name, Moon House Ruin. Ru-in. We regret that we were unable to get a photograph of the moon for reproduction. reproduc-tion. We didn't have a flash that would work on the black and white camera. Yes, we were Indeed fascinated. fas-cinated. We had descended into the canyon at about 11:30 a.m. It was now past 6 p.m. and we were hungry. Still, we had to force ourselves our-selves to leave this picturesque pic-turesque setting and Its fascinating structures in order to make a campsite by dark. Reluctantly, we left this site of peace and tranquility tranquil-ity and started our climb to the canyon rim, pausing frequently for "just one more picture" or to absorb a deeper appreciation of another view. As we reviewed re-viewed these blessings our thoughts and our heart-felt thanks went back to those ancient people who Inhabited Inhab-ited this colorful land long before it became a part of our great nation. For It was they who built, preserved and passed on these gems as shining examples of our righ inheritance. We have been privileged; we have been richly rewarded. We 1 will return. |