Cosima wanted to take a short break from her business activities.  We decided without hesitation to take a trip to Utah canyon country and take a few days to continue our exploration of the beautiful and now familiar area near Bluff, Utah.

Comb Ridge as seen from Comb Wash road.  Each notch marks a small
 canyon accessed from behind this spectacular formation.

We stayed at our favorite motel in the area (Recapture Lodge).  This time we decided upon a room with a kitchenette, as Cosima loves to eat in and watch movies at night .  We picked up a few videos from the store next door, then poured over several maps in the motel office, talked to the owner, and finally decided on our hikes.

For day hike one, we chose to explore a canyon which was about 6 miles down the Butler Wash road on the back side of Comb Ridge.  It looked like it might be a great little canyon.  We had missed Bill Priedhorsky's day hike to Comb Ridge last year (see below for a link to Bill's full trip report).  The goal would be to go all the way up the short canyon, get a view off the top of one tooth of the "comb", and return via the the canyon to the east.

We started our hike on the ridge on the west side of the canyon.  When we got a gorgeous view of the deep canyon below us, we decided to try to drop into the canyon.  The route went, but not without a fair amount of excitement.  When we reached the bottom we headed up canyon, stopping to perform a short ceremony over a fox that had apparently fallen from above, and to explore a bit for indian sign.  We found digging for same, but no sign other than non-native rock.  The view from the top was exhilarating.

Check out our "Comb Ridge Gallery" below.

Day hike two was an exploration of lower Road Canyon, as I had enjoyed the upper part of the canyon (see link below), and thought that the lower part might be worthwhile as well.  While not as spectacular a hike as our Comb Ridge hike, it was quite nice, and an adventure in route finding.

We approached the canyon via the Mormon Trail in our RAV4.  We started looking for the canyon, and a way down at about mile 10.  We discovered a dugway that had been mentioned to us by a local hiker.  He had not found the route himself, but had heard that it was in the vicinity.  It was in passable shape for human foot travel, but most animals would despair.

The photos in our "Lower Road Canyon Gallery" tell the story.